Friends Forever
by DiscordianSamba
Summary: Since becoming half ghost, Danny has faced all sorts of enemies- from the ghost king to his own evil self. But there are other ghosts out there, beyond the confines of Amity Park- and not all of them play by the same rules. When his mother organizes a vacation in order to reconnect with her son, he finds himself coming face to face with one such ghost. (No PP).
1. Evil Plot Free Vacation

Author's Note: So this is a story that I've been tossing around for quite awhile! Even before I came back to writing fan fiction, I was contemplating writing something like this. It's my first directly based canon fic in awhile, although there's the usual no Phantom Planet mild AU involved I guess. It's also an effort to write a Danny Phantom fan fic that prominently features an OC without it turning into a gag feast of horrible writing, Mary Sues, and unwanted and unneeded romance- which seems to be the fate of a LOT of DP OC fics.

It's also an excuse to try and introduce some vague horror elements to the show! So without further ado, and with the usual disclaimers applying, please enjoy!

* * *

Friends Forever

Chapter One: Evil Plot Free Vacation

It was probably the time when her son had come home with all the signs of his ribs being broken that first really grabbed Maddie Fenton's attention. They were largely gone the next morning, granted, but she had found them unmistakable when she had seen them the evening before. Worried, as any mother would be, she tried to convince her son to go to the hospital with her, but he had flatly refused, a reaction which had confused Maddie to no end. Going to the hospital was a natural reaction when one got hurt, wasn't it? Especially if one was hurt badly, as her son had seemed. It wasn't like he was Tucker, who she knew had a strong phobia of anything even vaguely hospital or doctor related.

Instead, Danny had gone upstairs and locked himself in his room, something which he had been doing often as of recently. That was a cause for concern too, Maddie now realized. Thinking back on it, she wasn't fully sure how she had missed all of these warning signs before- they had been there for awhile. She had always thought that the various bruises and scrapes her son came home with sometimes were the result of bullying, and she was growing insanely frustrated with the people in charge of Casper High School for not putting a stop to it despite her numerous complainants.

But bullying couldn't explain everything- the dropping grades, maybe, but not the times when Danny was inexplicably late to class, or times when he missed it entirely. There were even a handful of days where he simply didn't show up to school at all, even though Maddie knew he had gone that day- some of them on days she had even dropped him off herself, even. Danny never talked about it with her, even when she asked, and their normal methods of punishment didn't seem to be working anymore. He just took whatever they had to dish out without complaint these days, though he had complained early on.

Not like being grounded ever seemed to bind him to their home as it should, he always managed to sneak out somehow. Maddie was half tempted to recalibrate the ghost shield so that it would keep Danny in, as well as ghosts out. It couldn't be all that hard to do, seeing as more than half of their ghost hunting equipment locked on to him anyways. She and Jack had always found that a bit strange, but thought that perhaps it was some residual effect from his accident with the Fenton Ghost Portal down in the lab two and a half years ago.

Danny of course, was not a ghost. He was alive, all one had to do was take his wrist, feel his pulse, or watch the rise and fall of his chest to figure that one out. Maddie had been trying to figure out a way to get the ectoplasmic contamination out of Danny's signature, but her son seemed hesitant at best to try any of them. The mere mention of the Fenton Dream Catcher, for example, caused her son to pale. That was a puzzle to Maddie, but perhaps Danny was simply worried that there could be strange side effects.

It was a reasonable fear, she supposed, especially given some of the stranger side effects of some of their inventions- the cooker that was supposed to cook things twice as fast turning the sausages she had tried it out on into tiny, meaty monsters for one thing. The effect had only lasted about three or four days, to be sure, but it was worth note.

Still, Maddie was worried.

Jazz tried to assure her that Danny was fine, and as much as she trusted her daughter, she couldn't help but notice that she had been acting a little bit strangely herself. Not as strange as Danny had been to be sure, but Maddie could swear that sometimes Jazz got in their way on purpose, whenever that blasted Phantom showed up. She didn't understand that either, nor did she understand why Danny and his friends seemed to get along with Phantom either. As much as she trusted their judgement (well, to be honest, she was always a little skeptical of Tucker's judgement), she didn't think they understood that they were playing with fire.

Ghosts were evil, even seemingly placid ones like Phantom. That was what Maddie had thought for a long time, but these days, there had been things to shake up that belief. It was Phantom, mainly. There were more than a few times when he had saved her personally, though she was loathe to admit it. She didn't quite hate the ghost as she once had, finding out that he had been framed for that whole mayor snafu helped. But it didn't change the fact that he was a ghost, and that there hadn't exactly been a great number of friendly ghosts that she had encountered.

And boy, did she have any number of ghost encounters.

To think, people still thought she and her husband were crackpots three years ago, laughing at the mere idea that ghosts could be real. Well, two or three ghost invasions of the real world could change that opinion pretty quickly.

All caught up in these thoughts as she was, Maddie wasn't really able to focus on her normal ghost hunting work as she usually was. She constantly found herself distracted, by one concern or another, and she realized that she couldn't go on like this. The source of her problems, she thought, was the secret that her son was keeping from her, the secret that caused him to try and hide horrible injures from her on a semi-constant basis (she _might _be exaggerating a tad there, she thought). If she could get to the bottom of that secret, then her worries would be over.

Well, perhaps not over, but at least she'd be able to worry with a bit more direction. If whatever her son was doing was causing him to get hurt, then Maddie needed to know the truth. As his mother, she thought she deserved, on some level, to know the truth.

And that was why she had come up with a plan.

Spring break was coming up very soon, and Maddie had been hard at working looking through various travel planners and websites, all in secret of course. It wouldn't do if Danny knew what she was up to. Given how their past attempts at mother son bonding had turned out, she felt that he might be somewhat apprehensive about the idea of going on a trip with her.

But this time would be different, Maddie thought. She had been planning it herself, and not depending on some random invite from a company that seemed rather shady. It would be a whole week of fun in the sun with her son, a whole week without ghosts to worry about, and perhaps, a week for Maddie to get to the bottom of her son's well hidden secret.

And honestly, Maddie thought, she felt like she also kind of needed a break. As one of the few ghost hunters in Amity Park, she worked almost around the clock sometimes. She wasn't like that Phantom kid, who could keep going and going, being a ghost. She didn't have the youthful energy of the Red Hunter, though she was loathe to admit that. She still had no idea as to who the Red Hunter was, but Maddie had assumed that she was a good deal younger than herself. Competent though, for her age, though somewhat prone to cockiness.

So a nice vacation to a sunny, South Carolina beach was just the thing, she thought. She and Danny would hop on a plane- a real, commercial flight this time, not some fishy private jet piloted by a ghost, and stay at a rather nice looking beach side villa she had found up for weekly rentals.

She felt a little bad about excluding Jazz and Jack, and she had talked to Jazz about her plan. She had a strong feeling that her daughter knew exactly what her son was hiding from her, but she knew better than to try to get at Danny's secret through her. Jazz wouldn't budge, and she would only think less of her mother for it. And Maddie didn't exactly want to damage her relationship with one child in an attempt to repair a relationship with the other.

Jazz had been delighted about the plan, however, and seemed to think that Danny needed the break as much as Maddie did. It puzzled her for a second, and her daughter had clearly caught this, and laughed a little, telling her that she meant it in concerns to Danny's schoolwork. Since entering his junior year at Casper High, his grades had begun to slip again, although he had managed to get them up in his sophomore year. Maddie dreaded that her son was going to only scoot by this year again, as he had during freshman year.

And he used to get such good grades, too!

Maddie had been pouring over travel guides, picking out activities that she thought would be fun for the both of them. They had a dolphin boat tour in the area, and they could try some windsurfing, and a wide plethora of beach activities. To her delight, Maddie had discovered that there was a planetarium in the area, which she knew her son, who had always dreamed of being an astronaut, would love.

She couldn't help but wonder sometimes if that really was still Danny's dream. He hadn't mentioned it at all in the past two and a half years, and with his grades being what they were now, it seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream.

All that was left was to tell her son about it, something which she planned to do that very afternoon.

When Danny came home from school, the day before spring break started, Maddie was waiting for him in the living room. She had sent Jack on errand, looking for something that likely didn't exist. He would probably come back with it somehow though, as he always managed to do.

"Danny?" Maddie spoke up as her son came into the house. "Can we talk?"

Danny blinked, glancing around nervously about the house as he realized that his mother had been waiting for him. "Um, sure mom." He said, massaging the back of his neck. "What about?" He asked her, coming over to sit on the couch next to her.

_And please don't let it be about Phantom._

Maddie smiled at him, but took notice of how nervous he was. "Don't worry Danny, it's nothing bad. On the contrary, I have some wonderful news that I want to give you!" She said.

"Oh?" Danny blinked. "What is it?" He asked.

"Well, you know how we haven't been able to talk all that much lately honey," Maddie began. "And sometimes I just feel like I don't know you that well anymore, and that's just a shame." She told him. "So that's why I decided that the two of us should take a nice vacation with each other over spring break." She saw Danny open his mouth to protest the fate of their previous mother son vacations, and she cut him off. "Now I know the other ones turned out to be somewhat disastrous, but this time I planned it myself. No accepting invitations delivered to us in the mail, oh no."

Danny couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief, glad at least this wasn't some evil plot that Vlad had hatched up. "Well, a vacation does sound kind of nice." He admitted after a moment. "But what about Amity Park?" He asked, then realized what a strange question that was. After all, his mother didn't exactly know that he was Phantom, Amity Park's ghostly protector, now did she? "I mean, you're one of the most competent ghost hunters this city has. Do you think it'll be fine without you for a week?"

"Oh, I'm sure it'll survive." Maddie said. "Don't worry about it, Danny, your father is plenty competent, after all."

Danny bit back a comment there, knowing that it would upset his mother. He didn't like the idea of leaving Amity Park unprotected- but it wasn't exactly unprotected, was it? There was Valerie still, and Sam and Tucker could more than hold their own against some of the more minor ghosts. "Well, I guess that's true." He said after a moment. "But why the sudden interest in bonding again, mom? I know I haven't exactly been very social with the rest of the family lately... but it's not like I'm involved in anything bad."

"I know that, honey, you have a lot more sense than that." Maddie told him, giving him a smile. It got on her nerves, the way some people whispered that her son was involving himself with dangerous people, as if he was supposed to be in a gang or on drugs or something. The fact that most of those rumors seemed to be coming from Sam's parents bothered her as well- didn't they ever stop to think about their daughter's feelings, and how she might not like the fact that they were saying such terrible things about her best friend? She didn't understand what went through those people's heads.

"But, I just think it would be good for the both of us, is all. And maybe to make up for all of the lousy ones we've had in the past." Maddie smiled. "I actually haven't told your father about this yet- he would be _insanely _jealous if he learned we were going to the beach without him."

"We're going to the beach?" Danny asked, perking up at the sound of that. A beach vacation did sound really nice, and to be honest, he'd been having a lot of trouble balancing out being Phantom with his school life. It might be sort of nice to just be able to forget about it for awhile and just relax. And his mother had said she had planned this herself, and that it wasn't about ghosts, so there shouldn't be anything that would put his secret at risk, right?

It might actually be fun, he thought.

"We sure are!" Maddie said, smiling brightly. "It still might be a little bit chilly, as it's only spring, but there might be less people there." She told him. "I thought about going to the mountains for awhile, but then I remembered how our last camping trip turned out." She said, rolling her eyes. "I thought it would be best not to bring up memories of that so soon." She told him. "So the beach it was!"

"That... actually sounds really nice." Danny said after a moment. "I would sort of really like to go, to be honest. I mean, we can right? It's not like it's a trouble or anything in the financial sense or..."

"Danny, I wouldn't have planned it if it were." Maddie told him. "Besides, your father and I have been making quite a bit of money lately from selling portable ghost shields and Specter Deflectors." She told him. "So we're in the black, at the moment, well in the black. Imagine! Just a few years ago, they all thought we were crack pots!" She laughed.

"Yeah, things sure have changed, huh?" Danny laughed. He didn't know his parents had been selling some of their inventions for commercial use, but he should have guessed it. At least they weren't selling any ghost weapons, just anti-ghost protection items. He shuddered at the thought of any of the numerous Phantom fangirls out there acquiring a Fenton Thermos and deciding to use it to make Phantom their own. There were some, including Paulina, come to think of it, who wouldn't hesitate to do so.

"They sure have." Maddie noted, a solemn note in her voice. One of those things that had changed so much had been her own son, after all. "Anyways, we'll leave early on Saturday morning, so you may want to go ahead and start planning on what you'll bring with you. Now, don't let this distract you during school tomorrow, Danny, you still do have one more day left before spring break."

"I won't, mom, I promise." Danny assured her. He started to head upstairs, then paused, coming back to her and gave her a quick hug. "And thanks mom. This actually sounds like it could be a lot of fun."

* * *

"So, you're going to spend all spring break at the beach with your mom?" Tucker asked. "Well, consider me jealous, dude. Our family hasn't taken a proper vacation in forever."

"This seems a little out of the blue." Sam said. "Are you sure she's not up to something? Or someone else is pulling her strings?" She asked, looking somewhat concerned. "I mean, given how all of your other family vacations have ended up lately..." She said.

"No, I think it's legit this time." Danny told them. It was lunch break at the moment, and the trio had found themselves a table outside. "And trust me, I know about my past vacation history. I think this one is going to be different though. That said, I'm pretty sure she does have some sort of ulterior motive, but as long as I play my cards right, she'll have no reason to suspect anything."

"Well, if you're sure." Sam said after a moment. "I would hate to spoil your fun. Do you want us to look after Amity Park while you're gone?" She asked.

"That would be nice. I actually called Dani last night too- I don't know how she got herself a cell phone, so don't ask- and she said that she'll swing by for the week and keep an eye on things." Danny told them. "So give her a helping hand. Can she stay with you, Sam? I know your folks are going out of town on business starting today."

"Not a problem." Sam said. "It would be nice to have a chance to talk with her for once."

"Great. That's one worry off my mind at least." Danny grinned. "Now all I have to do is make sure that I don't do anything else to arouse suspicion from mom, and I might actually have a fun vacation for a change."

"Wish you luck on that." Tucker nodded his head, taking a bite out of his burger. "When are you leaving?" He asked him.

"Early tomorrow morning, I think." Danny said. "I need to make sure I have some time to pack tonight. Thanks to Johnny and Kitty having their semi-annual spat, I didn't have much of a chance to last night." He rolled his eyes. "I spent half the night chasing down Johnny's shadow while Jazz was stuck comforting Kitty. You know she's thinking about bringing them in for couple therapy sessions?"

"That I did not know, but they could use some, seeing as how they're stuck together for all eternity." Sam said. "And if the best thing the Ghost Zone has to offer in form of therapy is _Spectra_, I can see why everyone there is so messed up."

"Are you sure fighting with each other isn't their ghostly obsession?" Tucker asked.

"I don't know. Not every ghost's obsession is _that _obvious." Danny told him. "I mean, we all know what the Box Ghost's and Skulker's is, but others are harder to tell. I try not to dwell on it too much unless it become important. Like, what if I have an obsession or something?" He asked them, clearly looking weirded out at the mere thought of this.

"If you have an obsession, it's probably with saving people, Mister Hero Complex." Sam commented dryly. "At least we all know what _Vlad's_ obsession is."

"Boy do we." Danny rolled his eyes, more disgusted at this thought than he was about his earlier one. "I don't know though, he still seemed pretty fixated on her in that one alternate timeline where he had actually married her. Although really, it's something I try not to think about too hard. Because your arch-enemy being obsessed with your mom is _way _creepy."

"Agreed." Tucker nodded his head.

"Yeah well, it's just a subject I'd rather not talk about too much." Danny said after a moment, frowning a little. "Anyways, will you two be fine on your own for awhile? I mean, dad and Valerie will be here, and Dani's coming... but I just want to make sure the two of you can handle yourselves while I'm away."

"Of course we can, Danny." Sam assured him. "And if something goes wrong, you'll be the first person that we let know."

"Yeah, dude, don't worry about it." Tucker grinned. "You just try to have some fun on your vacation, and not let your mom get suspicious about anything you know, ghostly."

Danny laughed a little, flashing them a smile. "Will do. And boy, do I ever need a good vacation. Sometimes my mom does have her moments."

* * *

"Well, that sure was nice of Sam and Tucker to see us off." Maddie told Danny with a smile as they drove away from Fenton Works early in the morning. Her own husband, on the other hand, spent most of the morning moping because he couldn't come on the trip, but he'd perked up automatically when she mentioned that he would have a chance to spend some quality time with Jazz instead. She prayed Jazz would forgive her for that later. "You haven't forgotten anything, have you?" She asked.

"Nope." Danny assured her. "This time, Tucker made me a checklist." He laughed a little. It was pretty much routine for him to forget something when going on trips by now- thankfully his friends knew him well. Tucker had even made sure to make a checklist of emergency ghost hunting equipment- he had the Fenton Thermos tucked away in his bag.

"Well good." Maddie smiled, feeling a bit lighter already as they drove towards the airport. "I can't believe Jack made me take the Specter Deflector and a spare ecto-gun though. I don't even know if they'll let me bring those on the plane." She said with a laugh. "Even if they're not in my carry on bag. What possible ghost trouble could we run into on a sunny, South Carolina beach?" She asked.

"Hopefully none." Danny said and he hoped that it held true. He was looking forward to a week without having to worry about ghosts for a change. Ever since he started fighting ghosts as Phantom, it just seemed like more and more work just kept piling up on him. Even with Valerie's increasing competence and obsession with catching him lessening, and his mother (and he supposed, his father too), there still just seemed to never be enough time in the day to just sit back and relax. This would be a nice change of pace, he thought- even his mother was out of her customary jumpsuit- though he knew she had one tucked away in her luggage.

"I've got to admit mom, I can't remember the last time I've seen you in anything other than a jumpsuit. How many of those do you and Dad own anyways?" He asked.

"Quite a few!" Maddie said, laughing a little. "It's a bit nice to get out of it for a change, though. Sometimes it does get a bit hot come summer time."

"I guess that's true." He frowned. He didn't really feel that as Phantom, considering that being a ghost sort of just made you feel cold all the time. He guessed that was just a bonus of having ghost powers- never having to worry about heat stroke ever again. "I just hope dad and Jazz don't destroy the house while we're gone."

"Oh, if they do your father and I will be having a good, _long _talk." She said, a rather scary expression crossing her face briefly. "But I think they can manage for one week."

Danny couldn't help but chuckle, leaning back in his seat a little. There was a small silence that fell between them, but thankfully, it wasn't of the awkward variety. There had been a lot of those lately, and he knew the reason why. It was because his mother was starting to get suspicious, because she was taking notice of things she previously hadn't and was starting to wonder about their cause. The old explanations he had used to wave off any unusual injuries or behavior were now falling more or less flat and his mother was getting wise. Sometimes, Danny wondered if he should just come clean to his mother about being Phantom, but there was always that deep rooted fear in the back of his mind that made him keep his silence.

Danny had a sneaking suspicion that this trip was in part to figure out what was wrong with him, but he wasn't going to let his guard down that easily. Maybe if things went well and he didn't act strangely during the trip, his mother might decide that there was really nothing wrong with him at all, and she'd stop fretting over him every second of the day again, like it felt she had been doing recently.

Not that he could blame her, of course. After all, he was her son, and it was natural for a mother to worry about their children. She probably felt awful being unable to figure out what was going on, and it made him feel more than a little bit guilty.

"So um," Danny broke the silence, glancing over towards his mother. "Thanks for this, mom. It's sort of nice to just take a vacation every once in awhile." He laughed. "One that doesn't end up in some kind of villainous plot."

"Or Vlad trying to seduce me away from Jack." Maddie added, apparently not considering this to be a villainous plot. "I've been thinking about trying to introduce him to some of the nice single women in my book club- maybe it would get him off my back." She heaved a sigh, then smiled at Danny. "It's no problem though." She said, reaching over to ruffle his hair. "I can always make time to spend with my favorite son."

"I'm also your only son." Danny pointed out.

"Oh hush." Maddie laughed, as she turned into the exit that took them to the airport. "You remembered to bring everything to get you through airport security, right?" She asked him. "It's been awhile since we've been on a commercial flight, I hope I didn't put anything restricted in my bag."

"It would have been nice if we could have kept the helicopter we took from Vlad's that one time." Danny said, double checking his things as his mother asked. Thank goodness for Tucker, everything was where it should be. He didn't think being half-ghost would do anything that would cause eyebrows to be raised going through security, at least, which was a good thing.

"I agree." Maddie sighed. "But he took off with it after the events of the ghost invasion. Well, I suppose it was his to start with, even if he is a creep."

"I guess." Danny said, sounding rather glum, missing the brief period in his life when he could brag that his family had a helicopter. As they parked, he gathered his things, slinging his carry on bag over his shoulder, before grabbing his rolling suitcase, lugging it behind him as he and his mother lined up to get their tickets. "It was pretty cool though."

"That I can agree with." Maddie grinned, ruffling his hair again, much to her son's embarrassment.

* * *

Later in the morning, their plane touched down in South Carolina, and Danny couldn't be more grateful to get out of there. He and his mother had been stuck sitting next to someone who scratched themselves constantly during the entirety of the flight, and it was starting to get a little bit disgusting. If that wasn't enough, it smelled as if he had been bathing in cologne. There had been an ever so brief moment in which Danny had seriously considered just turning the guy intangible and letting him drop through the airplane- but that would be bad.

The two of them took in and let out a deep breath once they got off the plane, laughing a little as they exchanged glances with one another.

"Maybe I should upgrade our tickets to first class on the flight home." Maddie remarked, adjusting the strap of her carry on bag.

"Maybe we should just call dad to pick us up in the Specter Speeder instead." Danny joked.

"No, the last time we tried to fly over state lines in that, we were nearly arrested." Maddie recalled. "I don't think that would be such a good idea. Come on then, we better go collect our baggage and our rental car. We've still got a bit of a drive ahead of us."

"Ah, right." Danny said, stretching a little, before catching up to his mother. They collected their bags easily enough, and quickly located the rental car agency. When his mother had identified herself as 'Madeline Fenton', the elderly lady working the desk gave her a slightly suspicious look.

"You do recall, of course, that your husband is forbidden from ever driving any of our rental cars again?" She asked, eyes narrowing.

"Of course, of course." Maddie assured her. "Jack's not even here, I promise, he will not get behind the wheel of that car." She swore.

After the women rather reluctantly handed Maddie over the keys, Danny looked at his mother strangely. "What exactly did dad do get banned from driving rental cars?"

"There are some things you're better off not knowing about your father and I's college years." Maddie said simply after a moment, tucking away the rental car keys and heading with him to the shuttle that would take them to the rental lot. "Let's just say that Jack's driving has actually improved since he was in his twenties."

"Seriously?" Danny looked skeptically at his mother, wondering how his father could have possibly ever been a worse driver than he was right now. He still had no idea how he managed to keep his license, to be honest. With him, any car became a screaming metal death trap, no matter how high a safety rating it had.

"Serious." Maddie nodded, boarding the shuttle, pulling her suitcase up behind her. "He was known in college as the Nightmare on Wheels." She laughed. "Of course, he remembers it a bit differently, but that's Jack for you."

"Yeah, I sort of gathers that he kind of recalls his college memories a little different than other people." He said, thinking back to Vlad. Somehow Danny had the distinct impression that they probably weren't as close as his father made them out to be even before the accident.

"He just likes to focus on the positive." Maddie smiled a little. That said, she knew her husband was a rather unobservant man- he never noticed when Vlad made passes on her, and he never really noticed most of Danny's strange behavior, which made talking to him about her worries all the more difficult. That, and if he knew about them, she had no doubt that he would go barging into Danny's room, breaking down the door if necessary, and would try and confront him directly about what was going on in a way Maddie knew would never work.

She'd tried the direct route before, but Danny was surprisingly good at weaseling out of things he didn't want to talk about. She'd tried the indirect route with Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, but they had each assured her that there was nothing strange going on and that she was just paranoid and maybe needed either less coffee or more sleep, or both. It was about what she expected though, but it did confirm her suspicions that all three of them were in on it.

Well, she hoped this week's trip would shed some light on some of her unanswered questions.

"I think I'm going to sleep in the car a little, if that's okay mom." Danny told her as they got off the shuttle, yawning a little. He hadn't gotten to sleep at the time he had planned last night, not thanks to both Skulker and Technus deciding to show up and cause problems for him. He had planned to get some shut eye on the plane, but that obviously had not worked out at all for him. "I was a little too excited last night I guess." He lied, noticing her worried expression.

Not getting enough sleep was one of the things on Maddie's list. She had brought it with her on the trip as well, and it was tucked away in her carry on bag. Well, she supposed that being excited about a vacation was a pretty plausible excuse, but she had the feeling it was just that- an excuse. But, she decided that she wouldn't start off the trip on a sour note even before they had gotten to their destination, and decided to keep it to herself.

"That's fine." Maddie smiled at him. "I can navigate by myself." She assured him. "Should I wake you up if I have to stop the car?" She paused, mentally calculating the remaining time their trip would take. "I don't think we'll have to stop for lunch, we should be there before then. There's a great sandwich place I saw when I was looking up information that we could eat at when we get there."

"Yeah, that would be great." Danny told her. "Ah, there's the car, mom!"

"Oh, you're right." Maddie smiled, putting her concerns out of her mind. At the very least, she hoped Danny would be able to catch up on the sleep that he seemed to be missing this week. "Well, get yourself loaded up Danny, and let's head out."

"Right, right." Danny said, shoving his luggage into the back of the car. "Where's this place we're going anyways?" He asked.

"Winchester Beach." Maddie told him. "From my searches, it's a nice little beach town that doesn't get too much tourist traffic. Sounds like the perfect place for a little rest and relaxation!"

"Oh good, I hate tourist traps." Danny remarked as he got in the car, shutting the door behind him. "Well, I guess," he yawned again, suddenly feeling overcome with exhaustion, wondering if it was because of the flight over. "...wake me when we get there."

"Sure thing, sweetie." Maddie smiled. "Sleep tight."

* * *

Danny awoke to the sound of a clattering, rubbing bleary eyes, wondering what was making that sound. Glancing out his window, he yawned as he spotted the train running on tracks next to them as they drove along. "Just a train..." He mumbled, yawning again, wondering if he should go back to sleep. He wondered how much time had passed since he had fallen asleep, and wondered if they were close to their destination yet.

"Mom, are we-" Danny began, then stopped, something catching his eyes. He turned back towards the train tracks, frowning as he watched the train pass them. Suddenly, it felt as if the car wasn't moving, and everything around them was still. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up, and warning sirens began to blare in his head, ones that had become all too familiar to him.

Then he saw it.

Clasping his hands to his mouth was the only thing he could do to hold back the rising bile in his throat, as the mangled leg and arm could be seen dangling loosely over the train tracks. "M-mom!" He spat out, whirling around to ask her if she saw that too, only to discover that she wasn't there. Suddenly, he wasn't in a car at all, but was standing by the side of the train tracks. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, glancing warily towards the spot where he had seen the arm and leg, only to discover nothing was there but a puddle of blood.

_Creak, Scrape, Creak._

The sound sent a shiver running down Danny's spine, and it was all he could do to keep himself from instinctively transforming into Phantom. He cast a wary glance behind him, from where the sound was coming from, and instantly realized that was a mistake because he saw what was making the noise.

_Creak, Scrape, Creak._

_Creak, Scrape, Creak._

_Creak, Scrape, Creak._

"This a dream." Danny told himself after a moment, unable to take his eyes away from what was approaching him, at a far greater speed than something with one dangling, loose leg had any right too. He fought ghosts on a regular basis, but this was another thing entirely. The ghosts he fought didn't look like corpses- the closest to that he had gotten were the skeleton army of the Ghost King, but they weren't that frightening by themselves.

"You can't come here." The thing spoke, and upon closer examination, Danny realized it must have been a girl.

It's head hung loosely off it's neck, ripped and torn so that he could clearly see muscles and bones gleaming from underneath the torn skin. It moved by using it's one good leg, before half dragging the mangled one behind it, barely hanging on by just a few strands of muscle. The arm on it's right side, the same one the mangled leg was on, suffered very much from the same thing, hanging loose from the elbow down, dangling uselessly by it's side. Skin and clothing alike was torn off in random places on the body, mostly on the right side. The thing had dark brown hair, caked with dried blood, no longer in any recognizable style, but it's eyes were pure black, and staring into them made him feel like he was staring into the abyss.

"Trust me, I do not want to me here." Danny said quickly, taking a step back.

The thing chortled, looking amused. "Why do you wear that human body?" It asked. "Why are you pretending that you're something your not?"

"I'm human!" Danny protested, eyes narrowing. How did this thing know anything? Then again, if this was a dream, of course it would.

"It's no dream." The thing told him, black eyes glittering as the world seemingly faded around them, blackness inching in around them. In the darkest parts, Danny could hear the faint sounds of giggling and laughter, but he couldn't see what was making him. His ghost sense was going off like crazy, so there was something there, without a doubt. "I'm very fair, Phantom. I'll give you a warning. Turn back now."

"Or what?" He asked, eyes narrowing.

The thing spread it's hands, a mockery of the real action, as it's lower right arm simply swung loosely as it moved the rest. "Or?" The thing asked, the sound of a train approaching came through the darkness, sounding like it was drawing closer to them. "It won't be pleasant." It chortled, vanishing in the darkness, which vanished in an instant with her, leaving Danny suddenly back on the tracks, with a train barreling down on him, just inches from his face.

"Danny!"

His eyes snapped open, and he woke in a cold sweat, taking in ragged breaths. Startled, he realized that the car had stopped and had been pulled to the side of the road, and his mother had her hands tightly on his shoulders, frantic worry in her eyes. "Honey, are you okay? You were having a nightmare!" She told him.

"...a nightmare?" Danny said, looking at her, then letting out a sigh of relief. "I see, so it was just a dream after all." He said, then smiled at his mom, looking a little sheepish. "I probably shouldn't have been watching those horror movies with Sam then, yesterday afternoon." He lied. He just wanted to make her look a little more relaxed- he hated seeing his mom this panicked, because it rarely happened. When that expression showed up on his normal calm and collected mother's face, something was usually seriously wrong.

Exactly how much had he been flailing around while dreaming to worry her that much? Had he talked in his sleep?

"Are you sure, honey?" Maddie asked, concern still evident in her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Danny assured her. "Wide awake now too. Sorry for the fright." He apologized.

Maddie let out a sigh of relief, dropping her hands from her son's shoulders. "That's good, I'm glad." She took a few moments to calm her raging heartbeat, placing her hands back on the wheel. "No more horror movies for you for awhile young man." She warned him.

"You're probably right about that." Danny laughed a little, eager to dismiss what he had just seen as a dream. "Don't tell Sam I had a nightmare though, she'll never let me live it down."

"My lips are sealed." Maddie gave her son a small smile, before she focused on merging back onto the road. "We're almost there, in case you were wondering. It should just be another twenty minutes or so." She paused again, glancing briefly back at Danny. "You sure you're okay?"

"Just peachy." Danny told her, smiling. "Sorry for worrying you."

Satisfied with that, Maddie nodded her head, heading back onto the road proper. Danny heaved a sigh, wondering if maybe ghost fighting was starting to get to him. Turning to look out the window, he suddenly felt a cold chill creep up his spine, but he couldn't automatically realize why.

Train tracks.

There were train tracks.

The same ones from his 'dream'. As they drove by, they passed a white cross marker on the edge of the tracks, adorned with flowers, signaling that someone had died there. The tracks themselves looked like they hadn't been used for awhile, and were just starting to become overgrown. But without a doubt, they had been the same train tracks from his dream. As the white cross passed by them, for a brief second, the image of a mangled arm and leg dangling from the tracks appeared in front of him, and he could feel his heart drop into his stomach, a rising sense of foreboding welling up inside of him.

Danny had thought they were heading towards a relaxing and fun vacation when they left, and that the only thing he would have to worry about was keeping his secret from his mom, and not forgetting to wear sunscreen.

Somehow he got the feeling that this vacation wouldn't be nearly as relaxing as he hoped. And although there was no train running on the tracks, in the distance, Danny could hear the faint sound of an approaching train, and further in the distance, at the very edge of his hearing, laughter, distorted, and a chortle that came from a crushed throat.

_Too bad._


	2. The Town That Trains No Longer Come To

Author's Note: I return with chapter two, huzzah! Again, sorry for the long wait! I think I will be updating Wolf Boy x Ghost Girl after this, but no promises as I am apparently terrible at keeping them. That said, I bring to you news! Do you have a tumblr? Because I do. What's more, I am also currently role playing Danny on tumblr! The blog's URL is **greeneyephantom**, and as well as canon!Danny, I also play four AU versions of him, which can be found in Dangerous Obsessions, Graveyard Shift Redux, Dark Angel and Wolf Boy x Ghost Girl. You can also ask questions! Maybe I will try to draw out replies to them if I can.

Also if for some reason you want my personal tumblr, that is **bekuki**. Sometimes I post Danny Phantom stuff on there but recently it has mostly just been a ton of Precure.

As always, Danny Phantom doesn't belong to me, but Eileen, Aina, and the currently unnamed antagonist very much do! As always, I hope you enjoy! Please read and review, if you can!

* * *

Friends Forever

Chapter Two: The Town That Trains No Longer Come To

By the time they had entered the town of Winchester Beach, Danny had begun to convince himself that it had only been a bad dream. The product of stress and far too much ghost fighting for his own good. And it helped, he was starting to put the eerie girl and her cryptic warning out of his head. He had come here to relax, and damnit, that was what he was going to do, come hell or high water. Apparently, he needed it more than he had thought.

Gazing out the window, he took a good look at the town as they drove by. It seemed a pretty pleasant place, although rather small and out of the way. It didn't seem as if there were many other tourists here, which was nice. It might be nice to have the place to themselves to speak. According to his mom, she had booked them two rooms at a nice little inn by the beach, which she had gotten for a steal thanks to some rather skilled negotiation on her part.

They drove through what appeared to be the market district and Danny took a good look at the shops, making a mental note of which ones he could go buy souvenirs from for which person. Finding something for Sam was probably going to be the hardest part- and he needed to remember to buy something for Dani since she was back in Amity Park, filling in for him. Something useful for her, he thought.

He paused a little as they drove past what appeared to be a small train station, taking note that it appeared to be closed down, the windows shuttered and the doors barred. It almost had a bit of an eerie feeling to it, really. His mother took note of it too, glancing out of her window and making a small sound of disappointment- she didn't seem to get the same eerie sensation that her son did.

"Oh, the trains aren't running. Shoot." She said out loud. "I was hoping we could hop on it and head to some of the other little towns around here. They're all linked by train around this area. I read on the Internet that it was all supposed to be part of a larger project, but the funding fell through." She told him. "I thought it might be fun to take a day trip on it, and go to different shops."

"Maybe they're having trouble with the trains." Danny suggested- but for some reason, it made him feel strangely uneasy, recollecting the sound of trains from his dream. He did his best to put it from his mind, though, having convinced himself that it was just mere paranoia that had caused him to have a nightmare. However, as he recalled the cross marker he had seen placed near the tracks on his way in... somehow he couldn't erase the uneasy feeling entirely.

"I guess." Maddie frowned, heaving a sigh. "I guess we could _drive_, but it's not quite the same. It would take a lot longer too, and I'd have to go through all the trouble of looking up directions..." She said, mostly speaking to herself. Her mood brightened a bit, however, when she spotted what she had been looking for since entering the town. "Oh, here we are!" She said, smiling as she pulled the rental car into a parking lot. "The Inn on the Shores." She grinned, parking the car. "Doesn't it just look lovely? And it had great reviews, everywhere I checked as well."

Danny frowned a little, stepping out of the car. He paused first, cracking a few of his sore joints, before taking a good look at the place where they would be spending the next week. It looked as if it was a very old building, but it was also well kept, and honestly, it looked rather pretty. There was a courtyard off to the side that he could see, and he could hear the distinct tinkling of a fountain from within the iron gates. The building itself was all white, constructed in the antebellum style- although it was much smaller than the mansions and the manors that Danny had seen before. He could see several cabins around the back, which seemed to have been built at a later date, and guessed that they were extra rooms.

The porch was lined with flowers, and Danny thought that Sam would appreciate that- they looked well cared for. There was a rather nice seating area, and a porch swing installed, next to which dangled a wind chime. It was a bit girly for him to be honest, but it _did _look relaxing, that much he had to admit. "Huh. Yeah, I guess." He said finally, looking back at his mother.

"Great!" Maddie smiled, getting out of the car now, and stretching a little herself, before she locked it up. Pulling her suitcase out of the back, she grinned at Danny. "I'll go get us signed in then. Come on." She said, humming a cheerful tune to herself as she headed into the building. Danny couldn't help himself, and found himself grinning as well, taking his own bag, and heading inside.

He paused, however, as he came to the entrance way, and took a step back, frowning a bit. There was a horseshoe hanging over the patio, having been nailed there- recently, from the looks of things. "Weird." He mumbled to himself, before heading inside, taking not that there was another placed right over the door frame. Some kind of superstition, maybe? Whatever it was, it didn't bother him any, and he passed through without any problem to find his mother already at the front desk.

The inside of the inn was nice as well, and he could see a couple lounging in the front with their child- they weren't entirely the only ones here, it seemed. Nodding his head to the boy who waved at him as he entered, he went to great his mother at the desk, exchanging a quick hello with the woman running it. She had bright red hair, a curly mess of it, and appeared to be a little older than his mother and a good deal more plump- but she also looked quite pleasant and friendly.

"Your son, I take it?" The woman smiled at Danny. "Hello there! I'm Abigail Stanley, the owner of this inn. I do hope that the both of you enjoy your stay here!"

"Oh yes, I think we will!" Maddie smiled, accepting the keys that Abigail offered her. "Thank you very much. It really is quite lovely." She said, before glancing over at Danny. "Come on, let's get our stuff put down. I want to look around the area."

"Oh yeah, that sounds great." Danny said, accepting one of the keys from his mother, following her up the stairs.

"Now our rooms are adjacent, but there's an internal door that connects them." She laughed a little at Danny's expression. "Don't worry, I'll knock if I want to come in. You can always lock it if you need to do something in private. Ah, here we are!" She said, stopping in front of a pair of doors. "Room 203 and you are room 202. You get yourself situated."

"Right." Danny grinned, unlocking the door to his room and stepping inside, closing it behind him. Taking a moment to look over the room, he grinned a little- it was actually pretty nice! Not all that big, but it didn't feel cramped either. There was a nice bed, a seating area, and a quick glance inside the bathroom told him that looked really nice too.

Maybe a change of scenery would be nice for awhile, he thought, lugging his suitcase over to the bed. First things first, though, he unzipped his suitcase, carefully taking out the Fenton Thermos he had hidden in there for emergencies, and stashed them inside the dresser drawer. He had thought about bringing an ecto-pistol with him, but somehow he didn't get the feeling that even in luggage going in the cargo hold, that airport security wouldn't be too thrilled about that.

One never could be too careful.

A few moments later, a knock came from the internal door, and he glanced over at it. Walking over, Danny opened it up, and was met by the smiling face of his mother. "So?" She asked. "What do you think? Doesn't it just look lovely?"

"I don't know if I would call it lovely," Danny remarked, quirking a brow. "But it is pretty nice. The bed seems pretty comfy at any rate." He said- maybe he could finally catch up on some of his much needed sleep. "Right, so you wanted to take a look around?" He asked.

"Only if you want to come with me, Danny." Maddie said after a moment. "I know that you're a growing teenage boy, and you probably don't want to always have your mother hovering around you, after all."

"No, no, I'm okay with that." Danny said, laughing a little. "At least we probably won't have to worry about running into ghosts while we're here, huh?" He asked her, heading back over to the nightstand to grab the room key and his cell phone.

"Not likely. We wouldn't be able to see them here with our naked eyes anyways." Maddie said.

"Really?" Danny frowned, glancing over at her, seeming confused by this. Nobody has any trouble seeing the ghosts in Amity Park, so what about this place was different?

"Oh yes, I suppose we never mentioned it, did we? Your father and I chose Amity Park for our research because it was already a paranormal hotspot. There was a lot of trace readings of subtle ectoplasmic energy, and it was stable too. Everyone in Amity Park can see the ghosts that are there because the land itself is already predisposed to it. Think of it as passing into the city giving you an instant sixth sense while you're there. But outside of Amity Park, you and I probably wouldn't notice a ghost even if one did pass us by. On the other hand, it means any ghosts here are going to be drastically weaker than the ghosts back home."

"Huh." Danny frowned a little- he didn't know any of that. He guessed that Vlad's old home was also located in a hotspot, as well as his little cabin in the woods. It made sense, he guessed- it was probably why the rest of the world was still so skeptical of ghosts. "I guess that makes sense."

Still, somehow he got the feeling that hotspot or not, Danny would be able to see any ghosts perfectly fine. He was, after all, half ghost himself.

"Well, there are other circumstances with which a ghost can make themselves visible to the human eye." Maddie told him. "Ah, but we're not here to talk about ghosts, are we? Let's go see what's around here, shall we?"

"Sure." Danny grinned. "Let's."

He wasn't going to think about ghosts at all this week.

* * *

The day had gone by pleasantly enough, enough so that Danny was able to put thoughts of his dream from the car ride that morning entirely out of his head. Evening was approaching now, and Danny had decided to strike out on his own. He had eaten a ton for dinner, and he couldn't remember the last time he was able to fill his belly without fear of being interrupted mid-meal. So far, his ghost sense had been silent as well, and honestly, it was a relief.

He had called Sam earlier to check on things there and to let her know that he had arrived safely, and it seemed that she and Dani were hitting it off.

The sun was already starting to set, and the street lights were being lit up as Danny passed by them. It was a pretty nice, quiet town, although he had noticed that there were a lot of other homes that had nailed a horseshoe in front of their doorway, like the ones back at the inn. Upon closer examination, there were also horseshoes nailed on the cabins at the inn, and he wondered what it was about.

Still feeling a little room in his stomach, he decided to seek out some dessert, and found himself in front of an ice cream store. Glancing up, sure enough, there was another horseshoe above the door frame. Still, odd as it seemed, it didn't seem as if was anything to worry about.

"What'll you have?" The man at the counter greeted him, nodding his head at Danny.

"Uh, two scoops of the Double Fudge Brownie I guess. In a cup." He said, glancing over at the available ice creams. The man gave him a quick mock salute, getting his order ready. As he was waiting, Danny's gaze again flickered back towards the door of the place, before looking back at the ice cream man. "So, hey, what's with all the horseshoes in this place?"

From the way the man paled, and dropped the ice cream scoop, suddenly Danny felt as if asking was a mistake. The man chuckled, visibly nervous even though he was trying to appear otherwise. "Oops, butterfingers! Sorry about that, I'll get a new scoop. Can't use that one anymore!" He laughed, busying himself with getting a new one. "Ah, the horseshoes are just a local superstition. Supposed to bring in good luck and keep out evil spirits. I don't think anyone around here really believes in it, they just put em up out of habit."

"You from out of town, I take it?" He inquired, having visibly calmed down a bit now, passing Danny the cup of ice cream, and taking his money.

"Yeah, on vacation." Danny said, taking a bite of his ice cream. Oh this was good. "With my mom for the week."

"Oh yeah?" The man asked. "Where you two staying?"

"Ah, up the block. I think it was called the Inn on the Shores or something like that?" Danny said- and then noticed that the man seemed to pale again. Was there something wrong about where they were staying? It looked plenty nice, and he somehow doubted it was like a horror movie, where the innkeepers were ax crazy murderers. That sort of thing didn't happen in real life. At least, Danny thought it didn't.

"Oh yeah, Abigail's place!" The man said, nodding his head. "Nice woman that. Her daughter's a little bit odd." He frowned. "Well, you best be avoiding her if you see her. Girl has some awful bad luck, wouldn't want a tourist to get caught up in it." He whispered, keeping his voice very low. "But don't you go spreading that around."

"Uh... okay." Danny frowned a little, giving the man a skeptical look. _Really?_ Telling a random tourist that the daughter of the innkeeper of the place he was staying at was 'odd'? What was this guy's deal exactly? Didn't that seem just a little bit rude? Still, he didn't want to pick a fight, so he just nodded his head and excused himself, taking his ice cream and heading outside.

Was there something going on in this town that he didn't know about? Frowning, he shook the thought from his head. No, no, he wasn't going to worry about things like that, he had promised himself. He was on vacation, for god's sake, if there was something happening here, it wasn't his problem. He wouldn't make it his problem.

Of course, as he thought that, a familiar chill ran up his spine, accompanied by an all too familiar blue mist- one he was hoping that he wouldn't see while he was here. Stopping in his tracks, he glanced around, trying to see what the source of it was- and then the feeling passed, just as quickly as it had come. Just as he was ready to dismiss it, there was the sound of squealing brakes from behind him, and the sound of a collision. Swearing underneath his breath, Danny turned around, spotting the source of the noise- a car had just slammed into a telephone poll down the street.

Dropping his ice cream, all but forgetting the frozen treat, Danny found himself hurrying over towards the car. People were starting to gather a little, even at this growing late hour. Pushing through the crowd a little, he could see that there were already people working to free the driver from the car, and someone off to the side seemed to be calling an ambulance. As Danny watched the driver being pulled out, he couldn't help but overhear some of the faint whispers that were passing amongst the crowd.

_"High school teacher."_

_"Nice to __**that **__girl. The weird one."_

_"Promised to help her. She shouldn't have gotten involved. Dangerous."_

_"Cursed. That girl is definitely cursed."_

Another shudder racked Danny's body, and once more, his ghost sense went off. Blessedly, it seemed that nobody had seen it this time- but this time, he did catch sight of something, something that was quite clearly not of this world. Or rather, he _heard_ something.

_Creak._

_Scrape._

_Creak._

Danny's blood ran cold at the sound, knowing instantly from where he head heard it from. And faintly, ever so faintly, a chortle of distorted laughter reached his ears.

It... had just been a dream, hadn't it?

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Maddie had been relaxing in the courtyard, sipping a cup of coffee that she had brought back from the nearby cafe. She had smiled when Danny told her he was going out on another walk, pleased that he seemed to be looking awfully relaxed. He had been so tense and wound up lately, and she was glad that he was looking better. There was still no progress made on the other reason she had decided to take her son on this little trip, to find out what it was that he was hiding, but she would take things once at a time. Besides, if her son knew about her ulterior motive, it would defeat the purpose of bringing him here to relax, wouldn't it?

Maddie's attention was drawn away from her thoughts by the creaking of the iron gate, and she glanced up, wondering if Danny was back already. Rather, it was a young girl, who looked a year younger than her son- and one who seemed surprised to see that someone was already here. She had curly red orange hair, which amassed at her shoulders, and had hazel eyes, or so Maddie thought in the dim lighting of the courtyard. Her skin looked a bit pale, but she had a rather noticeable set of freckles stamped across her face.

"S-sorry." She croaked out, as if she was unused to using her voice- and Maddie couldn't help but frown a little. She almost seemed to be shaking. "I d-didn't know anyone else was here." She said slowly, backing away from the iron gate. "I'll leave you in peace, miss."

"No, that's perfectly alright." Maddie said, giving the girl a gentle smile. Was she not good with people? Somehow, Maddie didn't think that was quite it, rather she looked almost as if she were vaguely afraid of something. "I don't mind the company. I'm Maddie Fenton. I'm staying here for the week." She paused then, seeming to consider something. "Are you perhaps the daughter of the innkeeper? You look a bit a like."

Indeed, the mess of curls and freckled face reminded her of Abigail, though her daughter wasn't as rotund as her mother- she looked like she could use a bit more weight on her, to be honest. That said, Maddie also often thought that of her son- he was always so scrawny! Sometimes she wondered how Danny and Jack could have come from the same gene pool, to be honest.

"Y-yes." The girl stammered again, averting her eyes from Maddie. She gripped the side of the iron gate tightly. "I'm Eileen." She introduced herself, chancing a glance towards the woman. "B-but no, miss. S-sorry I won't disturb you." She stammered again. Before Maddie could protest and insist once more that it was fine, the girl was already on her way, hurrying off into the darkness. Heaving a sigh, Maddie set down her coffee, wondering what that was all about.

The next time the gate creaked was Danny however, and Maddie smiled at him, standing up to greet her son- before noticing that he was as white as a sheet. "Danny?" She asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh!" He laughed a little, slipping into an all too familiar nervous grin, the one that he wore when he was trying to hide something from her. "Yeah, I'm just fine. Sorry, I was just lost in thought a little. Nothing to worry about."

Maddie frowned, but ultimately decided against pressing the matter for now, nodding her head, rustling her son's hair a bit. He protested, trying to swat her hand away, and she couldn't help but laugh a little. "Well alright, if you say so Danny. So, what do you think of the town? I was thinking that tomorrow we could head out to the beach, bright and early."

"Oh yeah!" Danny said, putting on his best grin, trying to put what had just happened out of his mind. "That sounds great." He yawned a little then. "I'm a little tired though, mom, so if you don't mind, I'm going to hit the hay, okay?" He asked.

"Gotcha." Maddie nodded, taking a seat back on the bench. "I'll be out here for awhile longer. You sleep tight honey."

"Mmkay." Danny said, pausing before he headed outside of the gate. "Mom?"

"Yes?" Maddie glanced over at him.

"No, it's nothing." He laughed a little, changing his mind. For all he knew, there could be nothing to worry about. Maybe it really was just the stress from all the ghost hunting getting to him. "I'll see you in the morning." He said, nodding his head, before heading back inside the inn. He couldn't help but spare a glance up towards the horseshoe above the doorway- wondering if perhaps he should feel reassured that the charm had no effect on him, thus he was not an evil spirit, or worried that it had no effect on him, and thus was useless.

Upon entering the inn, he was greeted by Abigail, who seemed to be getting ready to close down the front desk for the night. "Good evening!" She said to him, her voice chipper. "Heading off up to your room? Daniel, was it?"

"Yeah. Going to call it an early night. I'm pooped." He said, smiling at her. For a moment, he wanted to ask her about the rumor about her daughter that he had heard- but then decided against it. That would be rude of him, after all, and he thought better of it. "We're headed out to the beach first thing in the morning after all."

"Good call." Abigail nodded her head, stepping out from behind the desk. "If you need beach chairs, they're in the shed off the main inn. A beach umbrella too, if you want one of those as well. Although from the look of you, you seem the type of fellow who needs to get himself some son!" She laughed, patting him on the shoulder. He couldn't help but flinch from the unexpected contact, and the innkeeper frowned, giving one of his shoulders a squeeze. "Not to mention some meat on your bones! You're kind of frosty there, kid, you okay?"

"Oh yeah!" Danny laughed. "Just, a little lower body temperature than average, that's all. And I'll keep that in mind, about the sun." He said. Here was a woman who apparently wasn't much of one for keeping hands to herself- it sort of reminded him of his father in a way, but with far less bulk.

"Ah well, that's fine then." Abigail, nodded her head, patting his shoulder once more. "You head on up to bed, honey, and get some rest."

"Right." Danny grinned a little, nodding before he headed up to his room. Pausing in front of his door, he reached into his pockets for his keys, swearing underneath his breath as he couldn't find them. Realizing that he had put them back on the nightstand and had forgotten to put them back in the pocket before he left his room, he slapped his face a little. If he didn't have ghost powers, he would be even more annoyed right now. As it was, he cast a quick glance about the hallway, making sure that nobody else was watching, before he carefully slipped through the door of his hotel room.

Flopping over his bed, Danny started up at the ceiling, thinking over what was bothering him. The accident in itself wasn't what was causing this welling feeling of uneasy to form in his stomach- people had car accidents all the time. According to the EMT's that had taken the woman way, she was going to be just fine. No, what worried him was that his ghost sense had gone off right before the accident, leading him to only one possible conclusion- a ghost had to have caused it. But here? No doubt, ghosts existed in other parts of the world, but from what his mother said, they seemed to have less influence outside of places like Amity Park.

Could one really crash a car? Why, though? Danny had dealt with a lot of evil ghosts before, but something about this was... different. He couldn't put his finger on it. Placing a hand over his face, he groaned a little. He hadn't come here to get involved in ghost business, he didn't want to get involved in ghost business- but was it really even something that he could stay out of?

Sam liked to joke that he had a hero complex, but he was honestly starting to think that she was on to something there. As much as he wanted to keep his nose out of this business, and ignore it, pretend that nothing was happening- when he stopped trying to deny what he had seen this morning as just a dream, he knew that something was happening here. And if this something was left unchecked, he got a strong feeling that it would lead to dire consequences.

He just had to figure out what this something _was_.

* * *

He was woken up with a start by his ghost sense going off. Azure eyes going wide, Danny jolted awake, quickly swinging his feet off his bed, eyes daring about the room, unable to recognize where he was. It took him a moment before he recalled that he was on vacation- or that he was _supposed _to be, at any rate.

"Excuse me~?" A girl's voice spoke up, and a cold tremor ran up Danny's back as he glanced behind him- and froze in place.

Yes, this was definitely a ghost.

"Oh, sorry about waking you up!" The girl ghost giggled a little. "I really didn't mean to disturb but you see, it's simply that I must talk to you and I could not manage to do so before now. I really hope you don't mind. You can see me right? Hear me too?" She asked, as if she was not quite sure.

"Y-yeah." Danny stammered. For all the world this ghost was speaking just like a bubbly teenage girl- which was almost what she looked like, except for the fact that she was carrying around her own severed head. Thankfully, she wasn't nearly as disturbing a visage as the other ghost from what he had thought was a bad dream, but was now starting to think otherwise, but it was still pretty off putting nonetheless.

"Ah, wonderful!" The girl smiled. Her head, which she was carrying in her hands, moved and reacted as if it were still a part of her body. She had brown hair, tied up into a high ponytail, which would have reached her shoulders if they were still connected to her neck. Her eyes glowed a bright green color, and she gave off a faint ghostly glow. She seemed to appear vaguely Asian, but not quite- mixed, perhaps? Compared to the ghosts in Amity Park, she was fairly see through, and Danny could see the rest of the room behind her in a vague blur.

He guessed that was a 'yes' on the idea of him always being able to see ghosts.

Still, aside from the decapitated head, this ghost girl seemed... fairly normal. She didn't seem evil at any rate, and Danny lowered his guard a little. She had gotten in here after all, which either meant that the horseshoe charm didn't work, or that she wasn't an evil spirit- and he was leaning towards the latter. "Did you want something from me, miss?"

"Oh yes, right! But first, please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Aina. Aina Yukimura." She said.

"Ah, right." Danny frowned a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm Danny Fenton. So Aina, what brings you to my room this late at night?"

"Right, well, I'll get straight to the point." Aina said. "I hope you don't think I'm strange," she began, and Danny couldn't help but think how anyone couldn't think a headless ghost girl could be anything but strange. "...but I saw you come into town this morning and right from the start I sensed something very strange about you. Please pardon me." She said, carefully shifting her head into one hand, reaching out the other to touch his shoulder lightly- delighted when she could. "Oh, I was right!"

"Ah, please pardon my sudden rudeness." She said again, withdrawing her hand, once again shifting her head so that she held it in both. "But I was thinking that you could save a good friend of mine." She told him.

"What sort of friend?" Danny asked. "Another ghost?" He said, recalling the disturbing ghost from earlier.

"Oh no." Aina said. "My friend is a very nice human girl! She has a strong sixth sense. Her name is Eileen!" She frowned. "Or we used to be friends. Now she's distancing herself from me- and from everyone else, for that matter. It's all because she's being haunted."

"Haunted?" Danny asked, frowning a little, wondering if this was related to what the man at the ice cream store had said about the unlucky girl, the daughter of the keeper of this inn.

"Yes." Aina said, looking grave. "When I was alive, I was good friends with this girl. Me and another girl. But..." She hesitated. "There was an accident."

"And you died?" Danny ventured.

"Oh no, not me." Aina said. "That came later. It was the other girl I mentioned who died. That said I must apologize, since I became a ghost, my memory is very vague and blurry in places and I can't quite remember what happened anymore. I only know that it was very bad." She told him. "They were the best of friends, that much I recall, and I only became close to Eileen and..." She frowned, stomping her foot. "Oh foo, I can't even remember her name. I'm sorry, here I am asking you for help and I'm not very helpful myself after all, am I?"

"No, it's okay." Danny said, holding up his hands. "Just tell me what you do remember."

"Right then." She said. "After that, bad things started to happen to people, but again I can't quite recall the details as to who. But people began to say Eileen was cursed! I thought that was awful and I tried to stand up for her, but eventually..." She frowned. "Our friend is haunting her, I think that much is true. At first, it was only people that were mean to Eileen, and it was only little pranks at first but then..." A grave look crossed her face. "People began to get hurt. And it stopped being just people who were mean to her!"

"Anyone who got close to Eileen, really. Myself included apparently. To be honest, I couldn't really tell you how I died, though I feel it was quite recent. I'm not sure if there were any deaths before me..." She frowned, clearly trying to puzzle this out- but gave up, unable to recall anything further. "Please, someone needs to save Eileen and I do not have the power to do so." She said, pleading with him. "I can tell that you have power within you- you are like us but not like us."

Danny frowned a little, half about to say that he was on vacation- when he realized something very important about the story that Aina had been telling her. She had died because of the ghost that was haunting this 'Eileen' girl- and the ghost was targeting other people as well. Someone had already died from whatever it was that was happening here, and he couldn't, in good conscience let that stand.

That said, he also didn't feel that this situation was something that he could take lightly.

"I'll do what I can, but I can't make you any promises." He said finally, frowning a little- but it was enough to make the ghost girl's eyes light up.

"Oh thank you!" Aina said, seeming as if she were about to cry- but of course, no tears came. She was a ghost after all. "Just knowing that there is someone here to help makes my heart soar. Eileen was a good friend of mine, and I am deeply worried for her sake. To be honest, although I am here now like this, I am unsure as to for how long... I do not have all that much power." She told him. "I don't understand much about being a ghost but I do not think I've very long in front of me. As long as the other ghost is around I fear I will be unable to approach Eileen. I've something very important that I must tell her no matter what!"

"What's that?" Danny asked. "I mean, if you don't mind sharing that is."

A gentle smile came across the ghost girl's face. "I must tell her that it isn't her fault. I am sure she is blaming herself for everything. That is the sort of person that she is. I am sure she is crying right now. I must be sure that she knows that everything will be just fine and that I do not blame her for dying."

"I see." Danny gave her a small smile, and then paused, rubbing the back of his neck again. "Um, if you can't tell her for some reason then... I'll pass the message along for you as well? I mean, you seem like a pretty nice girl. Not anything like a lot of the ghosts from back home."

"Oh, thank you, you are so very kind!" Aina said. "I knew that placing my faith in you was a wise choice. But please do be careful, I implore you not to take an unnecessary risks. Eileen will take anything that happens to anyone who tires to help her as another burden on herself, I'm afraid. I do not want to endanger the life of someone as kind as you, so if you fear for your life, it is alright to run."

"Oh, I apologize." She said, her form beginning to flicker. "I am afraid that I cannot maintain my form for much longer. Please keep my words in mind, Danny. If I can restore some power, I will return." She said- and slowly, she dissipated, and although he was no longer able to see her, Danny got the feeling that she was still around. So this was what ghosts were like outside of Amity Park.

Somehow, though, he got the feeling that the ghost Aina was warning him against didn't play by the same rules. He paused, glancing over towards the internal door that connected his room to his mother's, debating waking her. But he shook his head, he couldn't trouble her with this. After all, he would have a hard time of explaining to her that he had just casually had a chat with a ghost girl that by all rights, he should be unable to see outside of Amity Park. He didn't think his mother would be too hot on working on a request that came from a ghost.

That said, if he was going to do this, he did realize he needed to be careful- not just to heed Aina's warning, and his own sense of foreboding towards this other ghost, but because he would have no way of explaining it to his mother if Phantom also just happened to be in this town, far from Amity Park, at the same time as he was. He wasn't a fool, after all, he already knew that his mother had her suspicions. The last thing he wanted was for amidst all of this, his mother to find out that Danny Fenton and Phantom were the same person.

That said, right now, he had a phone call to make. Grabbing his cell phone from the nightstand, he flipped it open, calling up Tucker's number.

A sleepy voice greeted him, one that was annoyed at being woken up late at night. Honestly Danny had no idea what time it was, he had yet to glance at his clock.

"Sorry Tuck, it's me. Ran into a bit of a trouble here. When it's a more decent hour, do you think you could do me a huge favor?" He asked.

"Sure." Tucker groaned, yawning a little. "Man though Danny, leave it to you to run into trouble even on vacation. It's not Vlad again, is it? Because last I checked, he was still here in Amity Park."

"No, surprisingly enough, it's not Vlad this time. It's something a little more serious than Vlad, I think." Danny said, frowning a little.

"How serious are we talking here?" Tucker asked, his friend's tone serving to wake him right up. When Danny spoke like that, it usually was pretty serious.

"Hard to say for sure yet. I need you to look up information on a place called Winchester Beach. Just anything you can find Tucker, especially if it's about any recent accidents or anything." He told him. "It would help a lot. I could do some footwork here but... a lone tourist, asking questions? I somehow don't think that's going to end very well."

"Gotcha, dude." Tucker yawned again. "I'll get back to you when I can. You sure you don't need any help down there?" He asked, then shook his head. "You really do get into trouble everywhere you go though Danny. You're a magnet or something for it, I really don't know how you manage to do it."

"Yeah well, trust me, if I could change it, I would." Danny laughed, unable to help himself. "As for help- I'm not quite sure yet. I've still got a lot of things I need to look into, Tuck. But I'll keep the offer in mind. Everything a-okay over there still?"

"Everything's smooth sailing over here right now." Tucker said. "Alright though Danny, if you say so. I'll pass word on to Sam and Dani when it's a more reasonable hour. You take care of yourself though, okay? Don't do anything crazy."

"Cross my heart." Danny said. "I'm going to let you go Tucker, I'm too tired to think about anything else right now. Get back to me when you've found something." He said, before hanging up the phone, and letting out a loud yawn. It was true that he was awfully tired at the moment. First thing tomorrow morning, he would look into the matter, and try and determine what it was that was really happening here. But for now, he needed sleep, especially if there was a chance that he might be tangling with a potentially dangerous ghost in the near future.

That said, his mother was probably going to be pretty annoyed come tomorrow morning, when he would have to tell her that he had a change of plans. Honestly, he was sort of dreading it.

So much for a ghost free vacation.


	3. Dual Investigation

Author's Note: I guess a new chapter of Friends Forever for 9th anniversary of Danny Phantom? Huzzah. Anyways, here is chapter three, in which things begin to happen, and some gaps are started to be filled in! And everyone really should start listening to Tucker more, oh dear.

Danny Phantom does not belong to me, although Eileen and Laura do. Please let me know what you think! I love all kinds of feedback, so don't be shy.

* * *

**Friends Forever**

Chapter Three: Dual Investigation

* * *

"What do you mean you changed your mind?" Maddie Fenton couldn't help but frown across the table at her son, as they ate their breakfast. The Inn provided a free breakfast, and to be frank, if Maddie's mind were not on other things, she would be marveling at how utterly scrumptious everything was. "I was looking forward to going to the beach with you this morning Danny. I thought you were too."

"I just thought it might be best to get souvenir shopping out of the way as soon as possible, before I forget about it." He said. At least, that was his excuse. To be honest, he hated having to break his mother's heart- and he honestly was looking forward to going to the beach himself. But as long as this ghost problem hung over his head, he doubted that he would really be able to enjoy himself while he was here. No, something had to be done about it, and the sooner, the better.

Maddie heaved a sigh, clearly disappointed, but knew her son well enough to know that he had already made up his mind. "Well then, that's fine. I'll come with you, then."

"W-what?" Danny stammered a little, paling a bit. The last thing he wanted was to have his mom trailing after him while he was trying to conduct an investigation. And he didn't think she would like it too much if he gave her the slip while they were on a 'bonding' vacation. "I mean, no offense mom, but you kind of have this habit of hovering over people when they're shopping and I kind of want to choose everything by myself..."

Maddie frowned- she didn't do that, did she? It was obvious enough that her son didn't want her with him, and that frustrated her- and here she thought that the two of them were going to have a nice time together. "Well, alright Danny." She said finally, reaching across the table to place her hand over his, giving him a small smile, trying to ignore the impossible coldness that was her son's body temperature. "But we're going to spend time together still, right?"

"Of course!" Danny said quickly, trying to slip his hand out from his mother's as inconspicuously as possible. Ever since he'd noticed how low his core body temperature was, he tried to avoid physical contact with people who didn't already know his secret. It was the impossibility of the living Danny Fenton being the dead Phantom that protected him in part, after all, and he didn't want that to blow up in his face. "I swear to you mom, I'm not ditching you or anything. I just want to get it done in case I forget."

"Alright." Maddie nodded, seeming satisfied with that. "That's fine then. Should we meet up for lunch?"

"Oh yeah, that would be great." Danny nodded his head. He could do that for her, at least, although he doubted that all of this would be wrapped up by lunch. Somehow, it seemed much more complicated than that. "Should we meet here, say around twelve thirty?" He asked. At least, that seemed to be a time he could manage.

"Sounds good." Maddie smiled at him. "I think I'll hit the beach myself, at least. I've been cooped up in the lab all winter, and it's making me as pale as a ghost." She chuckled. "You look like you could use some sun too, Danny."

"Yeah, probably." Danny grinned a little. Of course, his pale skin was due to his ghost half- but he wasn't about to tell her that. Still, he guessed that didn't mean he couldn't still get a suntan if he tried hard enough. "Before I know it, I'll be as pale as Sam."

Maddie chuckled a bit. "Well, alright. Don't forget to buy something for your sister as well." She told him, giving him a look. "And something with a little more tact than your last birthday present to her." Where her son had managed to get _that_, she would never know.

"Oh, don't worry, I will." He grinned a bit, finishing up his breakfast. "I'm going to go get my stuff and then head out. Maybe we can make some beach time together later in the afternoon, who knows?" He cringed almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, realizing that yet again, he had just found himself making a promise that he didn't know if he could keep. This was becoming a bad habit of his.

"Well have fun." Maddie smiled, chewing slowly on her own eggs. "Don't talk to any strangers."

"Mom, I'm sixteen. I think I'm old enough to know who to talk to and who to avoid." Danny rolled his eyes, gathering up his plate and tossing it in a nearby garbage can. Heading up to his room, he unlocked the door, and grabbed his cell phone. There still hadn't been a call from Tucker, but he guessed that his friend might not even be awake yet.

Digging through his baggage, he pulled out a red hoodie made of light material, and pulled it on, taking the Fenton Thermos from it's hiding place and shoving it inside the jacket, which concealed it better than he thought it would. If his mom saw him with it, he knew that she would worry and might even get the wrong idea. And he wasn't really sure if he wanted to get her mixed up in this, and he knew that he would have no good way of explaining his own involvement with it if she should ask.

He didn't think she would be too taken with the idea of a ghost asking him to do it.

Shoving his cell phone and his wallet in on of his jeans pockets, he headed out, pausing to wave at his mother as he passed her by. Stepping out of the inn, he took a deep breath of fresh air, when he was startled by the sound of a small yelp and a crash.

"Hey, are you okay?" Danny blinked, spotting the source of the noise- a slightly shivering girl with orange-red hair. She'd apparently tripped over one of the porch chairs, which was now lying sprawled on it's side next to her. Thankfully, she didn't look injured, just a bit shaken.

"Y-Yes." Eileen stammered, glancing around hesitantly, almost as if she expected someone to be around. She pulled herself to her feet, ignoring Danny's extended hand, giving him a slightly wary look. "S-sorry." She said again, putting the chair back to it's rightful position. She dashed inside and away from him as fast as she could, leaving Danny more than a little confused and even a bit offended.

"Not used to that reaction in this form." Danny frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. She wasn't a people person, he guessed.

Shrugging off the strange encounter, Danny decided that the best place to start his investigation was the abandoned train station. He was sure that it had some connection to all of this, given the sudden closure and the white cross marker he had seen pegged along the tracks. Pulling up his hood, he headed down the street, trying to make himself look as inconspicuous as possible. He thought, briefly, about changing into Phantom, but he figured that would defeat the whole purpose of looking inconspicuous.

It wasn't too hard to remember the layout of the town- being rather small, it was rather straight forward. He found his way back to the shuttered train station with relative ease, although he continued past it until he found a place where he could duck out of sight without arousing any watching eyes. Closing his eyes, he turned himself invisible, and went right back the way he had just come, carefully avoiding any other people on the sidewalk, of which there weren't many. It wasn't until he phased safely inside the abandoned structure and ensured that there didn't seem to be any way to see inside did he let his invisibility drop.

"Whoosh, that's a smell." Danny commented, plugging his nose a bit. It smelt rather musty and dank in here, although from the looks of things, it didn't seem if it had been abandoned for very long. One of Sam's hobbies was exploring abandoned buildings, after all, something which she had on occasion exploited his powers to do. Not that he minded, of course, even if they were technically breaking and entering as he was most likely also doing now.

It was dark inside, but he could see just fine, his night vision having become sharper over the past years. On the surface, it appeared to be a normal train station, and he couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary about it. He glanced over some of the pamphlets, informing him of the basic route the trains took and of the time table, and finding that there was nothing interesting here, he moved on, heading towards the back where the platforms were sure to be.

Turning invisible once more before stepping back out into the sunlight, he glanced around him. It looked more or less normal here too, although some of the paint on the benches was starting to crack from going without maintenance for awhile. Turning his attention to the tracks, he jumped down, looking them over. From the road in, they appeared to have been wildly overgrown, but upon a closer look, it seemed as if this was merely an illusion- grass and flowers had only just began to overgrow the sides, but the tracks were otherwise still free of such things, save for a stray dandelion here and there.

That was when he spotted it though.

Frowning, Danny narrowed his eyes, kneeling down to get a better look. It was a fleck of dark red color that caught his eyes, and sure enough, there on the very edge of the platform, was a small droplet of red.

He wasn't exactly some kind of crime scene tech, but Danny knew enough to realize that it was blood. Glancing around him, he spotted a few more, some of them scattered over the tracks themselves, tiny little stray droplets that had escaped someone's notice. They had been in a hurry to clean up, and apparently they had missed a few small spots.

_Something_ had happened here.

Glancing down the tracks, his eyes narrowed a little, and he decided that he needed to press on, and check out the site he had seen earlier, the one with the memorial cross. Ducking down so that his body was hidden by the platform, he turned quickly into Phantom, white hair replacing black and green eyes replacing blue. Keeping himself invisible, he flew over the tracks, casting a downwards eye towards them. Here and there, along the tracks, there were darkened, drying spots of red.

There was a feeling of distinct horror that churned in his stomach as he quickly realized that the memorial cross he had seen was at least _a mile and a half _outside of the town.

It was enough to make him jump a little when his cell phone rang, and he scrambled to grab it, switching it on. "Tucker?" He asked.

"Yeah, dude. Sorry, did I call at a bad time? You seem a might jumpy." Tucker said, frowning a little.

"No, no, now's as good a time as any. What do you got for me, Tuck?" Phantom asked, floating along the tracks still, keeping his voice down.

"Some nasty stuff." Tucker frowned, looking down at his laptop, currently resting in his knees. "What kind of trouble did you say it was you ran into again, Danny? Because from what I'm seeing here... it looks pretty serious. Are you _sure_ this is something you should be messing with?"

"I was asked." Phantom said after a moment. "I couldn't exactly turn her down."

"Well _okay_." Tucker frowned, and Phantom could hear his friend typing in the background. "Winchester Beach has had two deaths within the past seven months." He reported. "Two months ago, a Japanese-American teenage girl by the name of Aina Yukimura was killed when a sign hanging on the outside of a store suddenly broke lose. There was enough force to completely decapitate her, which baffled the investigators looking into it."

"And that would be my client." Phantom noted, wincing a little, a stray hand reaching up to his own neck. Not something he wanted to happen to him.

"Really? You took on a job request from a ghost?" Tucker asked, sounding skeptical. "I don't know if that's such a great idea, Danny."

"It's fine, Tucker. She was a nice girl. You and I both know that not all ghosts are evil. Anyways, tell me about the other one. I think that's the key." Phantom said.

"If you're sure." Tucker frowned, scrolling back up. "Laura Dalton, another teenager. This one's pretty gruesome, Danny, are you sure you want to hear about it? I made the mistake of looking all this up before breakfast, and my stomach is still fighting with me about having eaten."

"I'm sure." Phantom said grimly. "I think I already have a vague idea anyways."

"Alright, but don't blame _me _if you find yourself losing breakfast." Tucker frowned. "It started at a train station in town, where a fight broke out between Laura and another girl. According to this article, she was trying to keep them from harassing her friend, who the article IDs as an 'Eileen Stanley'." He told him, and Phantom recognized the name from when Aina had told her about her friend. She hadn't said her last name, however, and he quickly recalled that the last name of the innkeeper was also Stanley.

_"Nice woman that. Her daughter's a little bit odd. Well, you best be avoiding her if you see her. Girl has some awful bad luck, wouldn't want a tourist to get caught up in it."_

"According to what I've found, the fight escalated to a fist fight, but it very quickly got out of hand." Tucker reported. "It exploded out onto the platform, and pretty much before anyone got their bearings, someone accidentally pushed Laura onto the tracks- right in front of the oncoming train." He could hear his friend wince on the other end of the phone. "Yeah, that's not the worst part though. Looks like the universe was dead set on killing this girl, because when the conductor went for the brakes, they malfunctioned and blew out on him."

Phantom could feel his stomach doing little flip flops, apparently the only thing preventing him from losing his breakfast was the fact that he was a ghost at the moment. Out of the corner of his eye, in the distance, he could now spot the white cross memorial, gleaming in the distance. "Go on." He said finally, his grip on the phone tight.

"The conductor couldn't get the brakes back online until about a mile and a half out from the station. Laura managed to get tangled up in the undercarriage of the train in the meantime, so she was taken along with the train." Tucker said, already feeling the sick sensation rising back to his stomach. "But that's _still_ not the worst part."

"What could _possibly _be worse?" Phantom choked out, finally arriving at his destination, landing in front of the makeshift memorial. He knew he was going to regret asking- but he had to know.

"When they finally pulled her out from the undercarriage, she was still _alive."_ Tucker grimaced, a shudder running down his spine. "According to the article, which, thank God, there are no pictures in, her body was heavily mutilated but she was still alive when they pulled her out. She didn't die until halfway to the hospital."

Phantom shuddered. And he thought being electrocuted had been bad- that took the cake, that much he was sure of. Somehow, he wouldn't be too surprised that something like that would create a ghost. "Thanks, Tuck. You are a big help."

"No problem, Danny. I still think you're getting involved in something that you shouldn't." He repeated. "Because according to these articles here, aside from your, ah, client's death, there have been a whole bunch of bizarre accidents in Winchester Beach since Laura's death. The girl that was involved in the fight that broke out that day had a tree fall into her bedroom in the middle of the night, that just narrowly missed her bed. She was checked into a mental asylum out of state not long after that."

"And there's one more disturbing tidbit of information I found about Laura Dalton." Tucker reported, his eyes darting over his laptop screen. "I can't _confirm _this, so it might just be a rumor, but about two days after the accident, apparently Laura's corpse _disappeared _from the morgue."

"Meaning?" Phantom ventured.

"Whatever you're dealing with, Danny, I don't think it's quite a ghost." Tucker said finally. "If I were you, I would convince your mother to pack her bags and take you out of that place, because I think you're trying to get yourself involved in something that you don't know how to handle."

"Tucker, I fought the Ghost King and my future evil self. I think I can handle this." Phantom frowned, ignoring the gnawing feeling in his stomach that he was very much getting in over his head.

"Yeah, and you did the first one with a powered battle suit, and the second with the element of surprise and good luck." Tucker pointed out. "I wouldn't push it, Danny."

"Look, Tucker, if it gets bad, I'll get out, promise." Phantom told him. "Look, unless there's anything else, I should probably get going. I think I've still got a lot of ground work to be done here."

"That's all for now. I'll keep looking around the net though, and call you with any updates." Tucker told him. "Stay safe, Danny. I think you're dealing with something nasty."

"I got it. Thanks again, Tuck." Phantom said, hanging up his phone, finally turning his attention towards the memorial in front of him. He could feel another shiver running up his spine, unable to get the gruesome mental images out of his head. Forcing them back, he knelt down, lightly picking up a framed picture that had been left at the sight.

Smiling back at him was a teenage girl appeared to be around seventeen years old, her dark green eyes full of life. She wore her dark brown hair pulled into a braid, which hung over her shoulder. She looked nice, he thought, but at the same time, he could also see a trace of her in the _thing _whatever it was that he had seen yesterday morning in that nightmare like space. Most of her hair had obviously been shorn off, but the thing very much still had the same shade of hair, and the skin that was still there was more or less the right shade.

Setting the photo back down, he looked at the flowers that had gathered, noticing that most of them seemed to be withering, as if whoever was offering things to her makeshift memorial had stopped coming. If Laura Dalton had become the thing that he had seen, the thing that was causing trouble in Winchester Beach, the thing that was haunting an innocent girl, the thing that had taken the life of another, then he felt as if he knew the reason why.

An all too familiar cold shiver ran down his spine then, shortly followed by a blue mist, and Phantom snapped into visibility. Eyes darting around, as if searching for the thing, instead his ears met with a horrible screech first, before wisps of purple-black smoke came from the ground itself, causing the ghost boy to jump backwards in order to create some distance between them.

The smoke quickly solidified, and it let out another screech, loud enough that he felt as if his eardrums were about to burst, the note it landed on almost feeling like it was tearing something out in his head. The ghost that appeared wasn't like anything he had seen before, although he had fought plenty of ghost animals in the past. It's purple-black form seemed to draw in all light around it, almost as if it radiated darkness in the early morning sun. It took the form of a massive, monstrous spider, with a jaw that looked like it could easily take his head off if it wanted to, and far too many teeth that a spider probably shouldn't have.

Another screech was all the warning it gave him before it charged him, moving at alarmingly fast speeds for something so large. Phantom let out a yelp, going airborne, charging up an ectoblast and hurling it towards the monster. It fell backwards, and he almost felt a hint of relief in the pit of his stomach that it was even affective against this thing, but his relief was short lived, as the monster then jumped upwards, right after him. Spitting out a sticky net, Phantom tried to get out of the way, but found his right arm bound by it instead, and felt himself being pulled towards the ghost spider.

Grimacing, he used his free arm to get the Fenton Thermos, uncapping it with one hand and letting the cap fall to the ground. "Please work." He heard himself mumble, and to his great relief, the blue light flickered, and the familiar sight of the ghost being compacted and absorbed into the Thermos was a great relief to him. Hurrying to grab the cap, he placed it back on, just as the ghost spider, attempted to shove a massive leg back out of it.

"Okay, giant ghost spiders. Adding that to the list of things I do not like fighting." Phantom remarked, falling back away from the tracks, feeling himself turning human again. "What the hell was that thing?" He asked, glancing down at the Thermos. He considered asking his mom about it, but he wasn't exactly sure how he would go about it in a way that wasn't suspicious.

Taking in and letting out a deep breath, he stood back up again, switching over to Phantom mode once again, turning invisible. He kind of just wanted to get away from here as soon as possible, unless another one of those things showed up.

* * *

Maddie had been a bit surprised when she had been stopped by Abigail on her way out to the shed where they kept the beach umbrellas and chairs. There was something on the woman's face that told Maddie that she wanted to talk to her- and she got the impression it wasn't related to her duties as an innkeeper.

The woman looked... rather distressed.

"Mrs. Fenton, I'm afraid that I haven't been _entirely_ honest with you." Abigail began, looking hesitant. "I'm afraid I need to discuss a business matter with you." She said quietly. "It's about my daughter."

"Your daughter?" Maddie blinked, setting aside the beach chair and the umbrella that she had fetched. A business matter? With her line of work, Maddie knew that could only mean one thing-

Ghosts.

"Yes." Abigail nodded her head. "I apologize, but when I saw your name on your e-mail, I recalled it from news reports coming out of Amity Park. That's why I fought so hard to get you to stay here. I need to discuss a matter with you, in person."

"I'm on vacation." Maddie pointed out, but given how distressed Abigail looked- somehow Maddie didn't have it in her heart to really tell her off.

"I know, I know, and again, I apologize." Abigail said. "Will you please let me tell you my story? If you're not working no matter what, advice, at the very least, would be a wonderful thing to get."

"I'll hear you out." Maddie said simply. "You did give me more than a fair price on this place, after all." She said- and too, she recalled the girl she had met in the courtyard last night, the frantic and worried one who seemed to be Abigail's daughter- and couldn't help but think that perhaps there was something serious going on here.

"Thank you." Abigail said, and it looked for all the world, a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. "It all started seven months ago, when one of Eileen's friends was killed in an accident. They were best friends, like sisters, almost. Her name was Laura, and she was a very sweet girl. My Eileen has always been a bit... odd, so she didn't have very many friends. Just her and another friend she made two years ago, Aina." She told Maddie. "After Laura died, things began to happen around Eileen."

Maddie nodded her head, telling the woman to go on. "It just seemed to be a bit of bad luck at first, really. Sometimes things broke, nothing to really worry about. But then the accidents started to happen. Starting from six months ago, it seemed that people who intended to harm Eileen caught wind of some rather nasty bad luck. It still wasn't so bad back then, a few cuts and scrapes, but that was all."

"And five months ago, a girl who bullied my Eileen nearly had a tree fall on her in her sleep. It was perfectly healthy, and it was a windless night. Nobody ever figured out what the cause was." Abigail shook her head. "After that, the girl claimed that she was haunted, and her parents feared that she was losing her mind. She was claiming that she was seeing Laura everywhere, and she couldn't take it anymore. She and her parents left town- I heard she had been checked into a mental asylum after that."

Maddie bit back her questions for now, sensing that the woman had more to tell. Sure enough, Abigail did. "Eventually it just wasn't people who were mean to Eileen anymore- it was anyone around her, who got too close. Her surviving friend, Aina, was killed in a freak accident two months ago, although she's been the only one to die so far." As Abigail spoke, one of her hands reached up to her neck, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what the manner of Aina's death had been.

"Please, Mrs. Fenton, I'm afraid my Eileen is being haunted. She's at the end of her rope." Abigail pleaded with her. "If you can tell me _anything_, even offer a little bit of advice, it would mean the _world _to me."

Maddie frowned, putting a hand to her chin in thought, eyes narrowing. Without a mistake, that sounded like the work of a haunting- some kind of poltergeist, perhaps. She had an inkling that the ghost was once Eileen's friend, the 'Laura' that Abigail had mentioned. And if there were people dying because of it, even if it was just one right now, it was a serious matter, that she as a ghost hunter, couldn't ignore.

But Danny was here, and she didn't want to get him entangled in this. She had half a mind to send him back home if she was going to get mixed up in this.

And she knew that she had to. One death would eventually become two, and the death toll would keep rising. It had been awhile since she had done any serious ghost hunting work outside of Amity Park, but she figured that she was more than competent in this field. And there was no way that she could let some more, defenseless girl suffer under the wrath of some kind of poltergeist- Maddie's maternal instincts wouldn't allow that to happen.

These stories usually ended with the person being haunted killing themselves.

And that only ever made things _worse_.

"Abigail, I'll look into it." Maddie said, putting a hand on her shoulders. "I can promise you that much. Why don't we go inside to the breakfast nook and get a bit of coffee, and then we can discuss it in my room? I'll do whatever I can to help you and your daughter, and I have a few ideas of my own as to this spirit that's haunting her, if you'll hear them."

"Oh thank you, thank you Mrs. Fenton." Abigail said, and all at once, the tension that had been knotting up in her body appeared to be released.

"Please." Maddie gave her a small smile. "If we're going to do business, call me Maddie."

* * *

At the very least, he hadn't encountered anymore of those things.

Phantom had done an invisible flyover of Winchester Beach, trying to both to memorize the layout in case he needed to and to try and see if there was anything else weird wandering around the streets that he needed to know about. He had tried to stop some of the wandering ghosts he saw here and there, but most of them were too afraid to speak to him, most likely more afraid of the thing that was Laura than they were of him.

He couldn't blame them.

Still, it had gotten him nowhere, and eventually the growling of his stomach had reminded him of his promise with his mother. Glancing down at his cell phone, he noted with a curse that it was now nearly twelve thirty, and quickly turned around and hurried back towards the inn. His mother wasn't waiting for him outside, at least, so Danny ducked back into the inn, and hurried back to his room. Just a minute after he had gotten there, there was a knock on the doors that connected their rooms, one that almost sounded a bit hesitant.

Quickly taking out the Fenton Thermos and shoving it back into the end table's drawer, he hurried to open the door, letting in his mother, who looked a little surprised to see him.

"Oh good. I didn't think you'd come back yet, Danny. How was souvenir shopping?" Maddie asked, smiling down at him.

"Oh great! I was able to find something for everyone." He lied. "Already safely tucked away back in my suitcase." He told her, grinning. "How about you mom, how was your day at the beach? It doesn't seem like your plan to get any sun really worked."

"Oh yes, no, apparently not. But otherwise, it was a very good day." Maddie said quickly, barely catching her son's lie this time, so caught up in her own. She never was able to go to the beach, she had been here all morning, discussing things with Abigail. She had a hunch that if the ghost that was haunting Eileen caught wind that there was a ghost hunter in town, it wouldn't stay quiet, so she had added the Specter Deflector to her wardrobe, tucked neatly underneath her shirt.

One could never be too careful.

Danny frowned a little- if he didn't know better, his mother was lying to him. But why would she be doing that?

"So, are we getting some lunch?" Danny asked, placing a hand on his stomach with a small laugh. "Because I'm _starving_." It seemed odd that he was even thinking of eating after what he had heard from Tucker today, but he guessed he had a stronger stomach than his friend.

"Of course!" Maddie smiled. "There's a cute little cafe- Danny, don't roll your eyes like that, just because it's cute doesn't mean I can take my teenage son to it- down the way. I hear they have some delicious sandwiches." She told him.

At any rate, she at least wanted to have lunch with her son in peace before she decided what to do with him. She didn't want to put him in harm's way, but she also couldn't abandon the Stanelys, not when they seemed to be in such a dire need of her services. She would most likely end up forcing her son to go back home, and although that shot her plans and bonding with him and maybe discovering what secrets he had been hiding straight to hell, she would be fine with that, so long as he was safe.

"Great." Danny grinned, crossing over to his mom's room, shutting the connecting door behind him. "Let's get some grub."

Maddie smiled, reaching over to give her son's shoulder a squeeze. But as soon as her hand connected with his shoulders, her hidden Specter Deflector gave off sparks, and he hissed in pain, shrugging her off, and turning around, staring at her with wide eyes, before they darted straight down towards where the ghost warding belt was worn.

"Why are you wearing the Specter Deflector?" Danny asked, his voice a bit wary. Had his mother learned something after all? Or had she, for some reason, started to suspect him of something?

Maddie, in turn, frowned deeply. That was _clearly_ the Specter Deflector reacting to him- and it wasn't the first time that it had done so either. However, when she had put it on him in the forest outside of Vlad's mountain cabin in Colorado, he had been just fine with it, and it didn't react to him at all. She had assumed, at the time, that whatever issue she had with it had been worked out- but she guessed not, if it was still shocking him.

She didn't know why it, and other pieces of ghost tech that she and her husband developed, reacted to Danny. Perhaps it was a faint, lingering trace ecto signature, an aftereffect of his portal accident two and a half years ago. But surely something like that would have been such small, that it wouldn't still linger after all of this time?

"Oh, yes." Maddie sighed, taking a seat on her bed. "I can't lie to you Danny. I was planning on talking to you about it after lunch, but it seems that I've run into a bit of work here, unexpectedly. The kind of work that I have great need to be careful with." Looking up at him, she gave him a small smile. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but this might mean that I'll have to cut our vacation short. I can't put you in the way of danger, and I can't just leave what's going on here and pretend it isn't happening."

"W-work?" Danny stammered, trying to do his best to make himself look completely ignorant, although he was very sure as to what it was that she was talking about. "What kind of work? And you don't really need to send me home mom, I'm sure that I'll be fine."

"Not if I'm dealing with a poltergeist, or something else along those lines, Danny." Maddie shook her head. "This ghost is different from the ones in Amity Park, I've already been able to gather that much. It's already lead to the death of one person, and most likely when it finds out that I'm after it, it'll be going right after me. And anyone close to me- which would be you, Danny. And you're not much of a ghost hunter, honey."

Danny fought back the urge to snort- not much of a ghost hunter his foot. Still, his mother had no reason to know about that, so he had to bite his tongue. "But what about the vacation?" He asked dumbly.

"I'm sorry honey, but I can't risk it." Maddie said, shaking her head. "I'll make it up to you in the summer. I'll even let you choose the place, since I seem to have a knack for causing us to find trouble."

"But what about you, mom?" Danny asked, frowning deeply at her. "From the sound of it, you'll only be putting yourself in grave danger."

"Danny, I'm a ghost hunter. I can more than handle danger presented by ghosts." Maddie smiled at him, standing up. "But I've made up my mind. I don't want to see you getting hurt, and I can't ignore this request. So I'm going to drive you back to the airport after lunch, and get you on the next plane out of here, and then I'm going to come back and get to work."

"Do you even have any of your gear with you?" Danny asked, his eyes frantic. Oh sure, he could just fly right back after his mom dropped him off, although he was sure he'd have some explaining to do after she got a frantic phone call from Jack telling her that he had never arrived back home, but Danny just couldn't leave her here alone to deal with this thing.

After all, she hadn't even seen it, and he had.

"I have some. A Fenton is always prepared, after all." Maddie told him with a smile. "I'll be fine, I promise. I'll call you every day, every hour, if you're that worried." She told him. "I'll finish this thing as quickly as possible, and then I'll come home. Perhaps we'll have enough time left to go on a mother and son staycation."

"I don't even think that's a _word_." Danny grumbled, but heaved a sigh. There was no fighting his mother on this- he would just have to come back later as Phantom. 'Danny sent me' was a plausible excuse, right? Even if it would infuriate his mother to know that Amity Park's most infamous ghost boy had been hanging out around her son without her knowing about it. "Fine. I can tell when there's no fighting with you, mom. But... we are going to lunch first right?" He asked, giving her a hopeful look.

"That much I can promise you, Danny." Maddie gave him a small smile, standing up. "Go get your things, and we'll put them in the car. I've already worked out everything with Abigail."

* * *

Lunch was uneventful (although pretty damn tasty), although Danny could tell his mother was wary. It reminded him that she didn't have a ghost sense that he had, something that gave him an extra edge over surprise attacks. She probably couldn't even see ghosts when they were outside of Amity Park, he thought, noticing that she had dragged her red tinted goggles out from somewhere, and had shoved them in her pocket. No doubt she had her hazmat tucked somewhere safely away in her luggage as well and it would be put back on once she got back.

No more of those weird ghost spider things showed up either, and best of all, neither did the thing that was once Laura. They had loaded back into the car after lunch without any events, and Maddie had pulled out of the cafe's parking lot, and started the drive back to the airport.

"So, uh, what do you think this job is going to entail, exactly?" Danny asked, glancing over at his mother. Maybe at the very least this all meant he could get some more information out of her. It was better than him just grasping at straws.

"It sounds like a poltergeist incident to me." Maddie reported. "A spirit that attaches itself to a place or a person and over time grows more and more bonded to them, I suppose the best word is. They don't want anyone to come close to that person or place, so they drive everyone away. It's the worse when it's a person- a poltergeist that's haunting a place can be dealt with much more simply, and people can stay safe simply by living. A person can't leave themselves."

"So, not like the ghosts back in Amity Park?" Danny asked.

"No, not at all." Maddie said, shaking her head. "Those ghosts are driven by obsession- poltergeists and their ilk are usually driven by desire. It's a pretty fine line, but is nonetheless one that makes a huge difference."

"Desire?" Danny asked, quirking a brow.

"In this instance, it would perhaps be a warped desire to continue protecting and being with the friend that she left behind." Maddie told him, glancing over towards her son. "It starts out harmless, but over time, sometimes a very short period of time, the malevolence in the ghost grows, turning them into a full blown poltergeist. Well, that said, not ever ghost formed from desire turns evil or becomes a poltergeist. In the past, some weak ghosts tied to desire have even been known to bring people good luck."

"Phantom might be a ghost tied to desire, now that I think about it." Maddie said, turning back to the road, so that she missed Danny paling.

"R-really?" He stammered, glancing down at himself. _Was _he? He'd always only thought about ghosts having obsessions- but apparently, having 'desires' was something entirely different.

"It's a thought." Maddie said. "In this case, his desire seems to be protecting people. Still, it doesn't explain some of his behaviors." She frowned. "Amity Park even has ghosts fueled with desire. The wishing ghost, Desiree, doesn't seem to have an obsession with granting wishes- not if she can reject them. It seems more like it's her desire to grant people their wishes. In her case though, her desire got warped somewhere along the way." She explained.

"Oh." Danny blinked, frowning. "I guess that makes sense." He said after a moment. "So what exactly is it that you plan on-?" His words were cut short when that familiar chill crawled up his spine, and a hint of blue mist escaped from his list. Suddenly going pale, his eyes darted around for the ghost, suddenly wishing, for once, that they had the Fenton RV with them.

He didn't see any ghosts, he thought- but then suddenly, the cold grip of fear ensnared him, as he recalled the accident that he had witnessed the first night he had spent in Winchester Beach. "Mom." He said slowly. "Stop the car, we need to get out_ right now_." He said, keeping his voice low, blue eyes transfixed on his mother's face.

"Hm?" Maddie blinked, frowning a little- and then, suddenly, without warning, the gas pedal on the car floored itself. Letting out a cry, Maddie clutched the wheel, slamming frantically on the brake, trying to get the car to slow down. But it was futile, it wasn't working, and the car was simply speeding up, shooting them down the thankfully empty stretch of road. Grabbing the emergency brake, she pulled on it as hard as she could, only to find that it snapped off in her hand.

And then the steering wheel moved against her orders, turning them a sharp right, sending them hurtling towards a head on collision with a tree.

Swearing underneath his breath, Danny did the only thing he had time to do, heedless of any consequences that might follow. He phased himself out of his seatbelt and grabbed his mother, ignoring the pain the Specter Deflector shot through him, before he pushed off, phasing them both out of the car. They hit the ground hard at that speed, although Danny made sure to protect his mother as best he could- whatever wounds he got would be healed a lot faster than hers, after all. They both rolled off to the side, and Danny felt his head banging hard against something, most likely a rock.

Groaning, Danny quickly got to his feet, placing a hand on the back of his head. Sure enough, there was blood there, but it didn't seem to be too bad.

Maddie had also hit the ground hard, although her head had been sheltered from the impact by her son. There was a throbbing in her right shoulder, and she was certain that she had, at the very least, dislocated it. But her mind wasn't on the pain right now, rather, it was on something else entirely.

Her son, her _human _son, had just phased the both of them through a car. Dimly, she was aware that he was bleeding, red caking the back of his head, and spike of concern shot through her. But he had just phased them through a car, and- his eyes were green, bright green, and glowing and-

Then she _heard_ it.

_Creak._

_Scrape._

_Creak._

Then she _saw _it.

Maddie Fenton had always been a woman who considered herself to have a steel stomach and nerves to match. But even she felt bile begin to rise in the back of her throat as the poltergeist came into view- no, poltergeist was the _wrong _word for it.

_Corpsewalker_.

She was unaware that she had said it out load, which prompted a startled look from her son- it... _was_ her son, wasn't it? Those glowing green eyes of his reminded her of someone else entirely. But no, she had to focus on the threat in front of her right now, she couldn't afford to be distracted.

"I warned you." It spoke, and it's voice was distorted, words spoken from a throat that had been crushed. "You ignored my words. I can't have you getting in my way."

The thing moved closer to them, stepping forward with it's one good leg, before dragging the other one behind it. It caused the ghastly noise, and it sent a shiver down Maddie's spine, watching her drag the useless limb behind her.

And then it _moved._

Nothing in that condition should ever move that fast, but it was on Maddie in an instant. She swore, springing to her feet and jumped backwards, but she wasn't just fast enough, and the thing clasped it's hands around her throat.

And then let out a scream, the Specter Deflector around her waist sensing the threat, and seemingly kicked into overdrive, sending out a wave of electricity through Maddie's body, forcing the thing to let go.

And then, as if seeing his mother in danger was something he could not take, Danny threw all caution to the wind, all concerns about his secrets out and lifted his hand, firing as powerful of an ectoblast as he could muster towards the thing that had once been Laura, forcing it across the road. He forced aside the slight gasp he heard from his mother, trying not to lose focus on the thing in front of him.

Which was laughing, glancing between the two, as ectoenergy dissipated from Danny's hand. "She_ doesn't know!_" It declared, a wild smile on it's half torn up face. "She doesn't know!" It's smile quickly faded as soon as it had come, and an air of warning and foreboding once again formed around her. "I'll give you one last warning. Leave, and don't return. Otherwise I will kill you."

And just like that, she was gone just as quickly as she had come, leaving Maddie and Danny alone in the middle of an empty road. Suddenly feeling a bit woozy, Danny vaguely realized that he had lost more blood from his head wound than he had thought, and stumbled. He cast one eye towards his mother, his vision distorting as the world began to spin. But he still had to talk to her, had things to tell her but-

"Sorry, mom."

That was all he could get out before he hit the ground, only dimly hearing his mother calling out his name before he blacked out entirely.


	4. This Is a Story of A Mother's Doubts

Author's Note: Yo, here's chapter four! I kept putting this off to be honest because people were being pretty rude in their bugging me about writing it so please don't do that guys, it's not cool. I'm a human being with a life and other things to take care of, not some kind of mindless fanfic pumping machine. Always a good thing to keep in mind! That said, I do appreciate the sudden explosion of interest in this story and I hope that this chapter is just as good. We be getting into some good stuff with the next chapter, hopefully, which I look forward to writing.

Danny Phantom is not mine, although Laura, Aina, and Eileen are.

* * *

**Friends Forever**

Chapter Four: This Is a Story of a Mother's Doubts

* * *

Her son whispered an apology to her before he slumped to the ground. Maddie scrambled to her feet, hurrying to his side, scooping up his fallen body in her arms. For a moment, she could feel her heart pound in panic in her chest- and then she saw it, the steady rise and fall of his chest. The woman's shoulders slumped, and she heaved a sigh of relief, realizing that her son wasn't dead. The blood seeping from his head wound looked pretty bad, but he seemed otherwise to be just fine.

Her relief was short lived, however, as an edge of doubt began to creep into her mind. The boy she held in her arms looked and even _acted _like her son- but he had been able to phase the both of them through a car, not to mention the fact that he had fired what was assuredly an ectoplasmic blast at the Corpsewalker. No _human _should be able to do those things.

Maddie gritted her teeth, forcing aside her doubts for the moment. Ignoring the spike of pain it sent through her right shoulder, Maddie picked him up, careful to support his head, as she returned to the wreck that had been their rental car. It had collided with a tree with enough force and speed to topple it, the trunk of the tree having collapsed in upon the roof of the car. Had they been inside of it, they both surely would be previously injured- if not dead.

Whatever strange powers that her son (and it was her son, wasn't it?) had used, he had saved both of their lives. Setting him carefully down on the grass, Maddie turned her attention momentarily to her own dislocated shoulder, feeling it carefully with her left hand. Taking in a deep breath, she steadied herself before she set it back into place, letting out a grunt of pain as she did so. It still throbbed in protest when she moved it, but it was more than manageable now.

With that taken care of, Maddie turned her attention back towards the boy before her, trying to calm the storm of thoughts that was racing in her mind. Danny had shown powers, powers that normally were not found outside of ghosts. The thought of her son having some kind of mutation briefly fluttered through Maddie's mind- they did deal with a large amount of ectoplasmic materials, after all, but she pushed it aside. They took great care to make sure that their children weren't harmed by the more radioactive stuff, it was safely contained within their home where they could not get to it, and where it could not leaked out. Maddie herself had taken months off of work when she had discovered she was pregnant with both Jazz and Danny, so as not to run the risk of them being born with any issues due to ectoplasmic exposure.

"Right now, those thoughts can wait, Maddie. Your son needs medical treatment." She told herself, before turning back to the ruined car. She approached it carefully, and with a bit of effort, she managed to get the trunk open, though she had to hold the door up with one hand while she used the other to tug out her son's suitcase. There would surely be some spare clothes in here that she could use for makeshift bandages, she thought, dragging his suitcase out of the car and hurling it off to one side, jumping backwards before the weight of the tree trunk forced the trunk door back down.

Wiping some sweat from her brow, Maddie suddenly wished she had her jumpsuit on. It would have been comforting to wear when dealing with various paranormal horrors. She had left it, with her other luggage, back at the inn. Unzipping Danny's suitcase, Maddie quickly found an old shirt he knew she used for his pajamas and pulled it out, setting it aside. She paused, however, catching sight of a familiar metallic gleam in his suitcase, and unable to help herself, she pushed aside the clothes that covered it.

"Why does he have a Fenton Thermos?" Maddie asked, taking it out and giving it a deep frown. And a well worn one too, it seemed. And judging from the fact that it didn't have any markings on it, it must have been the prototype that she and Jack had made some time ago. But that Thermos had been stolen from them by the ghost boy, Phantom, although they hadn't known about him back then, not in the early days.

Why would Danny have Phantom's Thermos? It didn't make any sense to her- and she could also tell that it had been used, as the indicator light showed her that there was something currently trapped inside of it. A little more through inspection of her son's belongings exposed a hidden ectogun, or what she thought was one, given the shape of the strange lump underneath the lining of Danny's suitcase. She couldn't figure out how he had gotten it in there, but surely if her son could phase them through a car, he could shove an ectogun into the lining of his suitcase.

Maddie also managed to find a first aid kit, and she decided to put all of her doubts and suspicions on hold for the moment, and simply treat the boy in front of her. Picking up the kit, she set the Fenton Thermos back where she had found it and took one of the water bottles that he had tucked away as well, and crouched down next to the unconscious boy. Carefully, she lifted his head into her lap, placing it gently on top of it, before she cracked open the first aid kit. It was both well used and well stocked, she noted, as if he had frequent reasons to use it. Recalling the numerous injuries that she had seen on Danny in the past, she didn't doubt that.

Carefully turning him on his side, Maddie studied the gash on his head. It wasn't deep, but it was wide, and she quickly set to cleaning it as best she could, using the pajama shirt she had taken from his bag to help. Once it was flushed, she unrolled some of the bandages in the first aid kit, and carefully tied them around his head, making sure that they were nice and snug, but not too tight. The bleeding had already seemed to slow down, she noticed, and likely would stop soon.

With that taken care of, Maddie checked him over for anymore injuries. A few minor scrapes and bruises, which she treated and applied band aids to where needed, but nothing otherwise too serious for someone who had just jumped out of a moving car. He had protected her, she recalled that much, made sure that her head especially had been shielded from impact, instead taking it himself.

That action contributed to the woman's doubt. She frowned deeply, softly stroking his hair, watching the steady, but somewhat too slow, rise and fall of his chest. Her fingers strayed to his wrist, and she sat there for a few minutes, feeling his pulse underneath her fingers, too slow for a normal human. A pulse this slow would have raised alarms at any hospital that he went to- no wonder he avoided the doctor's office like a plague these days, she thought.

Her grasp tensed a little as she suddenly recalled the green eyes flashing to life on her son's face. Maddie's breath caught in her throat as she realized that she had recognized those eyes- they weren't just any ghost's eyes, but rather, they belonged to Phantom. She had seen them enough to know, had sometimes spent what must have been hours staring into them in photographs, silently demanding answers from the ghost boy, answers about why he didn't _fit _into any of her research, which she had accumulated years and years of. Why he often seemed too little like a ghost, and more like a human, why he was so driven to protect the people of Amity Park, regardless of what they thought about him.

Phantom's Thermos, Phantom's eyes, _ghost powers_.

Maddie's head throbbed, and she raised a hand up to it to try and battle back the headache that was threatening to overtake her. She had never said anything about it to Jack, but sometimes she got the feeling that her son, over the years, had gradually started to seem less human to her- and more like one of the ghosts that they hunted. She hadn't even wanted to admit that to herself, so she had always shoved it to the back of her mind, choosing not to think about it. But it was hard for the thoughts not to resurface every time a new piece of ghost tech picked up her son, and no matter how hard she tried, she could never program it out of them.

Speaking of ghost tech, her eyes snapped open, as she glanced down at the Specter Deflector at her waist. It looked almost burnt out, as if it had used all it's strength at once to repel the Corpsewalker, and dimly, she realized that it was the reason why it wasn't reacting to Danny now as it had been. She had never had the belt used against something so high level, she would have to make a note that it would short out if exposed to too high level a ghost.

"Corpsewalker." Maddie breathed out again, a shaky hand resting over Danny's heart, as if she needed to feel the steady, though slow, beat of his heart in order to chase a way a doubt. Her son- or the person she thought was her son- was alive, of that she had very little doubt at least. His stats all seemed to be down- it wasn't just his abnormally cold body temperature that was a worry. Thinking back on it, Maddie recalled that they had never been close enough, long enough, for her to detect these kinds of things in the past.

Whatever was going on here, she didn't think her son was one of _those _monsters. The fact that he had been growing alone was enough to help chase away that particular doubt.

Maddie's eyes narrowed then, recalling what the Corpsewalker had said- it had said that she had warned them. But Maddie had gotten no such warning, she knew. Her lips twisted into a frown, once again turning back towards the unconscious boy whose head was resting in her lap, and realized that the ghost had meant him.

"I need you to wake up, kid, there's so much I need to ask you." Maddie said softly, but couldn't find it in her to jostle him awake. A cold grip of fear grasped her then, and the worry that she had been trying to hold off on, the idea that the boy in front of her, who looked like her son, acted like her son, wasn't actually her son, but some stranger who had been living in his body for the past two and a half years. And if that was the case, then where had her _son _actually gone? What if the child that she had been raising for these past two years wasn't actually Danny but was...

What if it had been _Phantom_?

The thought churned at her stomach, and she clenched her fists, trying to calm herself down. She didn't know that was true, after all, it was just a theory. There could surely be many other reasons and explanations behind what was going on here, ones that_ didn't _involve her son having been replaced by Amity Park's Public Ghost Enemy Number one. There was no reason to jump to conclusions. She just needed to confront Danny about all of this once he woke up. She would get the information from him, one way or another, even if what she heard wasn't something she liked.

She didn't know what she would do if that horrible theory turned out to be right, though. If she had lived with a ghost for the past two years, one that had pretended to be her son so well that she only had the occasional doubt about him. And yet... as much as it pained her to admit it, she couldn't find it in herself to churn up the unbridled fury inside of her that she thought she would have. She wasn't sure why, exactly, and to be honest, she didn't want to dwell on it any further.

Danny stirred and Maddie turned her attention towards him, placing a gentle hand on the top of his head. "Danny?" She asked, speaking softly to him, as if trying to coax him into awareness. "Honey?"

Blue eyes, blessed blue eyes as bright and clear as the sky, slowly fluttered open, peering up at her. Maddie bit back a sigh of relief as she saw them, and simply smiled at the boy, who was slowly starting to come to.

"Mom?" Danny asked, grunting as he pushed himself into a sitting up position, his head swimming in protest as he did so. He placed a hand on his head to steady himself, vaguely realizing that his mother had bandaged his head. For a moment, he couldn't recall why she would have to, or even where they were or what had happened. Everything was a all vague blur, his memories having been jumbled up by his earlier blow to the head. "Did you get the number of that bus?" He found himself saying, unable to resist one of his usual quips.

Maddie couldn't help but smile a little. That was her Danny speaking, and yet she still couldn't help but be filled with doubts. And she knew it showed on her face as well, because slowly, Danny seemed to piece together his memories, his blue eyes going wide as he recalled exactly what had happened after his mother had lost control of the rental car.

"Mom, I..." He began, frantically searching for a place to start. After that there was no way that she didn't have questions. Or rather, he knew that she had questions, and doubts on top of that, if the look he had seen flashing across his mother's face was any indication. The fact that she had treated his wounds and hadn't cuffed him and wasn't pointing an ectogun at him were all very good signs, but Danny got the feeling that he was on very thin ice here. After all, he had just used his ghost powers in front of his mother, and she had already stated many times in the past that she thought there was no way that a human could ever have them- so who knows what kind of crazy theories she was starting to come up with to explain what had just happened.

Of course, they were all probably far more logical than her son being half ghost, he realized, which only made everything all the more complicated. He just really hoped that his mother would be willing to listen to him all the way through.

Not to mention he was still worried about the thing that was Laura- as well as the one word that his mother had uttered when she had appeared at first. What on earth was a Corpsewalker? He had never heard of that term before. Then again, he had never seen anything like Laura before either, so that shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to him.

"I do want an explanation." Maddie said, getting to her feet. "But we also need to think of something to do next. For one thing, the car is totaled." She said, glancing over towards it. Perhaps it would be better to get the truth out of him if she just acted normally as possible. "You saved us from that, whatever the case might be, so I do have to thank you for that." She told him, glancing back towards Danny. "But I want the story behind this."

"And you'll get it. Trust me, you'll get it." Danny told her, trying to stand up- but quickly sat back down again, his head swimming as he tried to do so. No doubt his head wound was already healing, but for now, he was rather woozy. He didn't trust himself on his feet, at any rate, so he just crossed his legs in front of him, trying to look as harmless as humanely possible. What was his mother even thinking right now? There was something distant in the way that she spoke to him, and he didn't like that one bit.

What if she didn't think of him as her son anymore?

Maddie sat down across from him, sensing that he was a bit unsteady on his feet. She wanted to help him feel relaxed after all, and not feel tension. She just wanted the truth at this point, whatever that truth might be. "You used ghost powers." She said after a few minutes of silence, neither of them really knowing where to start. "Humans shouldn't have those."

"I know, you've only told me that like, a million times in the past two years." Danny said, rolling his eyes. Well, it had been way less than that, but sometimes it felt that way at least. "But I do. I... I have ghost powers. I've had them ever since the accident with the portal. You remember that, right? I spent half a month recovering in my room after that shock."

"You wouldn't let us take you to the hospital no matter what." Maddie recalled, frowning a little. Yes, now that she thought back on it, the accident with the Fenton Ghost Portal was where everything had begun, wasn't it? After that had happened was when she had first begun noticing strange things about her son, and it was when their ghost tech had first began to key into him. It had started with the Fenton Finder, and had extended to pretty much every other piece of ghost hunting equipment since then.

It had been easy to dismiss the Fenton Finder at least- both she and Jack had talked about it, and had said that likely Danny would have some lingering trace ectosignature clinging to him for awhile after the accident. After all, he had been inside of the Ghost Portal when it turned on, and it had given him a huge shock. No doubt that there would be some side effects from that. They had later told themselves that was what caused the drop in his body temperature as well, but after a point, everything had gone beyond what they felt that the accident with the portal could explain, including the fact that Danny's trace ectosignature had remained for far longer than it should, and was too strong for something that could be described as a mere trace.

"Did the accident with the Fenton Portal cause something to happen to you, Danny?" Maddie asked him, trying to keep her voice normal as she could. When she saw her son flinch a little when he heard her say his name, she realized that she had let some of her doubt slip when she had said his name.

Danny looked away from his mother then, a feeling of pain surging through him as he heard that doubt in her voice. She really didn't think that the person in front of her was her son, did she? He didn't understand why she was even letting him explain things to her then, given her previous track record. Maybe she had hit her head too, in spite of all the care Danny had taken to ensure that she wouldn't. "I... I am your son you know." He mumbled, unable to look his mother in the eyes. "I'm Danny Fenton, same as I have been for the past sixteen years of my life. That hasn't changed at all."

"I'm sorry." Maddie said after a moment, breaking the brief awkward silence that had hung in the air. She didn't doubt that he was telling her the truth, even though he wouldn't look her in the eyes. That was why she didn't just want to ask him directly- she knew that if he had really been Danny, the accusation that he would have become someone else would have hurt him, and she didn't want that. And yet, she had gone and done that anyways, even if she hadn't meant to. She felt horrible about that.

"I know." She said finally, placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched a little, half expecting the Specter Deflector to go off, no doubt, before he finally noticed that it appeared to have burnt out. He seemed a strange mix of both relieved and worried, and was no doubt thinking of the monster from earlier. "I'm sorry, Danny. This is all new to me. I don't know what to think and as a scientist, I'm trained to think of all the possibilities. I'm going to need to ask you a question that might be a bit painful for you know, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, honey but- are you _alone?_"

"Yes!" Danny sputtered out, in spite of her warning, his blue eyes going wide. "First you seem to doubt who I am, and then you think I'm _possessed!?_" He shouted, looking honestly somewhat horrified, as much as he had expected this. "No, I'm... mom, I'm alone. And I'm me. Same as I always have been. And I know what your research has told you in the past, but I need to tell you that your research is wrong, mom- humans can have ghost powers." He told her directly, before finally looking away again, lips twisting into a deep frown.

"...they just have to not quite be human to have them." He mumbled.

"I don't understand what you're trying to say." Maddie admitted finally, reaching out to gently turn Danny to look back towards her. "Honey, please. I want to help you, but you need to tell me everything. And... I'm sorry. I know that question probably sounded horrible. But you have powers that humans normally shouldn't have, and as your mother, I can't help but be worried about this fact. What if they're hurting you or making you sick or-?"

"No, trust me, I'll be fine." Danny said shortly, taking her hand and putting it back down. "My powers can cause me problems, but they don't hurt me or make me sick." He told her frankly. He let out a deep sigh then, before finally just deciding to get it over with. "You are right about the Ghost Portal doing something to me though. It... changed me." He told her, looking at his hand. "I don't exactly know how to explain it really. I was inside of it when it turned on, and I got a huge electric shock from it- probably worse than you or dad ever realized. And then... I guess it infused ectoplasm into my DNA or something along those lines, because I'm..."

He closed his eyes then, still wanting to resist confessing the whole truth to his mother. But he couldn't go back now, he had already gone too far. Better to let her know everything and find out what would happen, than leave his mother to make up her own theories about the matter. "I'm half ghost." He told her, opening up his eyes, letting them shine a bright green. "Or, if you want to be more morbid about it, the portal accident half killed me."

"Half...?" Maddie's brows furrowed in confusion, already trying to work out how such a thing was possible. Her mind played out endless scenarios in her head, but none of them ended with such a thing as being a half ghost. "That's not possible. Or, it shouldn't be possible, Danny. The portal should have either just killed you, or made you very sick, or had just done nothing but... something like a half ghost... are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm not alone, after all." Danny told her, and then winced, realizing that his mother would want answers about that too. As much as he would like to see his mother's fury at realizing that her old friend Vlad was the Wisconsin Ghost that had caused them so much trouble, somehow he didn't want her to know that right away. What if that caused her to think that one day her son would gradually turn evil, just like Vlad had?

Danny doubted that was the case himself, but for his mother, whose first gear seemed to be 'all ghosts are evil!', switching out of that might be a bit hard for her. He just hoped that given time, she would be able too, because he didn't want to have his mother constantly watching over his shoulder, checking for warning signs that her son's ghost half was leading him down the road to darkness.

He still wasn't sure how she would take this news. Would she reject him still? Would she think he was sick and confine him to the house? Would she try and _fix _him, something that Danny already knew full well was a bad idea. Or would she just accept her son with open arms, or perhaps open arms with a few attached doubts? The latter two options seemed to be the best ones, and honestly, that was what he was hoping for here.

He wasn't sure what he would do if his mother decided to reject him instead. All of the other options, he could handle, even the one where she tried to fix him like something about him was broken- but not that one. Never that one.

"There are more of these half ghosts?" Maddie asked.

"There are. Two others. But for now can we just... not press me about them, please?" Danny pleaded. "I mean, for starters, we do have better things to worry about." He said, getting to his feet, the woozy feeling having faded. The green in his eyes gave way back to his normal blue, and he couldn't help but notice that his mother seemed to relax once they did. To be honest, he still sort of doubted that she actually believed him when he told her that he was really her son, or that he wasn't possessed. Most of her did, yes, of that he had very little doubt, but he felt that deep down, his mother still had doubts about him.

The only thing he could do was try and drive those doubts away, and he hoped that he had a chance to do that. And as much as the idea of his mother now knowing that he was half ghost- and she was a smart woman, she had probably connected him with Phantom already, although she hadn't brought the infamous ghost boy up yet- was a problem for him, the bigger problem still was the one where peoples lives were at stake.

He already knew that he couldn't abandon the people in the town of Winchester Beach, and couldn't leave them to that spectral horror show that had once been Laura Dalton. Maybe it was like his mother had said, maybe Phantom was driven by an unshakeable desire to help people. Sam and Tucker sometimes joked that he had something of a hero complex, and maybe that was more true than any of them ever realized. But he couldn't deny how driven he felt to try and help these people, even though he didn't know a single one of them, and how frustrated he felt because he had arrived here too late to do anything about the one death that had occurred.

"What's a Corpsewalker, mom?" Danny asked, trying to determine exactly where they were. He stopped short, his gaze locking onto a sight that sent shivers down his spine- just up the street, not far from them, was the cross memorial that had been set up in the spot where they had plucked Laura's body from the wreckage, horribly mangled, but still alive. What a fitting place for her to attack them, then, although somehow he got a hunch that any further past that marker, and she wouldn't have been able to touch them.

"Danny, we're not..." Maddie began to protest that they weren't done with this conversation, but something in her son's gaze made Maddie close her mouth. She got to her feet, a bit amazed at the speed of his recovery. Normally he would have been light headed and unsteady on his feet for a good while longer, but he looked like he had already recovered from his head trauma. "Alright then, I'll tell you about Corpsewalkers, but I want to ask you a question first, young man."

"As long as it's not about the other half ghosts." Danny told her, looking back at his mother. "I'll talk to you about one of them someday... as for the other, that's not my secret to give away." He shook his head. "It's nobody you know anyways." He told her, doubting that she ever had the occasion to meet Dani.

"That Corpsewalker said that she had warned us- and I know for certain that I got no such warning." Maddie said, frowning deeply. "Did you encounter her already, Danny?" She asked him.

"Yes." Danny admitted, slowly nodding his head. "It was when we were heading into town. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it." He frowned then, eyes narrowing. "It was like I was having a nightmare, but it was also a bit too real for one. Then that thing appeared and warned me to turn back. I heard the sound of trains and then saw one coming... and then I woke up." He told her shrugging his shoulders. "I tried to put it from my mind at first, to be honest."

"You should have said something right away, honey!" Maddie said, her eyes going wide.

"I thought it was just a bad dream." Danny said, shrugging his shoulders. "After that, well, given what you told me about hot spots and stuff, I was worried what you would think if you found out I could see ghosts outside of them." He told her, rubbing the back of his neck. "But you still haven't answered my question, mom. What's a Corpsewalker? I'd like to know what we're dealing with."

Maddie's eyes narrowed at this, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and shaking her head. "Oh no, I am not letting you deal with that kind of ghost, Danny. You are going home on the first flight back, and then you and I are going to have a serious talk about this secret that you've been keeping from me and your father."

"Mom, you don't understand." Danny told her, looking back at her. "After you dropped me off back at the airport I was just..." He hesitated, trying to phrase this as delicately as possible. "I was just planning on flying right back over and helping you behind the scenes." He said finally, gaze sliding away from hers again. "I already made a promise with someone that I would help, and I don't really feel like I can reign in on that promise. You're going to have to let me help you. Besides, the cars totaled anyways, and it'll be faster to walk back to town in the first place."

Maddie grimaced, realizing that her son was right- it would be easier for the both of them to walk back to town. She shook aside her brief surprise that her son could apparently fly- of course he would, if his ghost half was who she thought it was, something she was honestly trying not to think about just yet, not wanting to let everything that had happened today overwhelm her. She had gotten a commission to deal with a poltergeist, had learned it was a Corpsewalker, had almost died, and now she had learned her son was half ghost?

It was enough to think about already without dwelling on the fact that her son was most likely also Phantom.

"I don't want you to, Danny. It's dangerous. Ghosts like this aren't something to be dealt with lightly." Maddie said stubbornly, although deep down, she realized that he might not even be able to help it. He was half ghost after all, and ghosts were driven by desires and obsessions- and she had no reason to think that her son was an exception. She didn't like that thought either, of her son being driven by the same kind of ghostly urges as any other ghost out there- what kind of effect had something like that had on her son's psyche, and what kind of effect would it have on him in the future?

"I'm going to help you." Danny said finally, crossing his arms in front of his chest, quirking a brow. "No ifs, ands, or butts, mom. I don't want to see you in danger either. Besides, like I said, I already promised someone that I would help, and I probably know just as much as you do about the situation. The only thing I don't know is exactly what a Corpsewalker is, so I would appreciate some information in regards to that."

Maddie heaved an irritated sigh, throwing up her hands. "Very well." She said, shaking her head. "A Corpsewalker is very much as it sounds, Danny. It's a ghost that instead of becoming a free spirit, remains bound to the body that it had as a human. It can't escape it, so it's not entirely as if they're possessing it by choice. Normally this happens in cases where death was prolonged, and usually in cases in which the said death was equal parts traumatic and extremely painful. Which, given what I've heard of Laura Dalton's death, it qualifies."

"I know about that part." Danny nodded his head, glancing towards the cross memorial. "That over there? That's for her. I'm guessing that we were attacked here because her power can't spread beyond it." He said, noticing his mother's surprised look, giving her a sheepish grin. "I went and did my own investigation after I got the job myself, so to speak. Tucker helped, though."

"So Tucker does know about this." Maddie said with a frown. "Sam too, I'm assuming." She paused, looking uncertain for a moment. "It's not that one of them is...?"

"No." Danny quickly cut her off, shaking his head. "Both Tucker and Sam are human. But yes, they do know. Anyways, could we not talk about me at least for a little while? It feels like there's more to these things than you've quite finished telling me."

Maddie's eyes narrowed- she didn't care much for having Danny speak to her this way, touchy a topic as this must be for him. "Corpsewalkers are dangerous. They usually fall into poltergeist class." She told him. "They're also visible to normal humans, unless they choose not to be, since they do technically still have a human body. It's because of that, though, and because of their manner of death that they are driven to insanity." She explained. "They are constantly in pain and they can't escape that by leaving their corpse. They are bound to it until they are destroyed and the soul is set free." She told him. "Until that happens they will continue to get worse and worse, such as in this case."

"It started off with just small accidents, right?" Danny asked, but it was clear that he wasn't asking her, more like he was musing aloud. "And then it got worse until someone died. By the way mom, if you meet a headless ghost, a girl around my age, she's cool." He said quickly, glancing up at her. "Although I doubt you would be able to see her, she seemed like she was having trouble holding her form when we met."

"You met the ghost of the victim?" Maddie asked, then shook her head, biting back a protest that all ghosts were evil, the phrase having become so ingrained into her. What _did _Danny think when she or his father said something to that effect when he was around anyways? Or when Jack talked about ripping apart a ghost, molecule by molecule, or when she had talked about studying them? She shuddered a little, suddenly realizing why her son had chosen to keep his secret a secret in the first place- because he didn't feel _safe _around them.

That hurt.

"Yeah." Danny nodded his head, trying to ignore the look on his mother's face. He knew full well what phrase was on the tip of her tongue, but he had to admit, he was glad that she hadn't said it out loud. It seemed like a good sign to him. "She was worried about the friend she left behind, the one the ghost is haunting." He told her. "She asked me to help her. Apparently amongst ghosts, word about me gets around somehow. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but, there you go." He said, shrugging his shoulders. "The thing that was Laura seemed to know about it too, obviously enough."

"That much I did gather." Maddie nodded her head, eyes narrowing. "Corpsewalkers usually also attract ghosts named Wraiths. They aren't ghosts, strictly speaking, more like spirits, and manifestations of human fears. _Normally _they take the form of animals, although there are some exceptions depending on the person in question, things people are afraid of like snakes or rats, sometimes wolves or things like..."

"Spiders?" Danny suggested, recalling the thing that he had fought earlier in the day. Had that _really _been from this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago already.

"Yes." Maddie blinked, frowning. "Are you suggesting that you've already encountered one, Danny?" She asked him, worry suddenly flooding her features. "You didn't touch it, did you? Or let it touch you?"

"No." Danny shook his head quickly, blinking. "Why? Would something happen if they did?"

"Yes." She nodded her head, starting to pace a little. Danny's eyes followed her as she did, before they fell on his opened suitcase. He frowned a little, glancing back towards his mother, clearly not pleased with this breach of his privacy. She simply shrugged it off. "You have to be careful of wraiths, Danny. There's a good reason your father and I wear these jumpsuits, aside from avoiding possible damage from ectoplasmic radiation." She told him. "A wraith is a manifestation of fear, and a wraith's touch thus creates something known as Wraith Sickness. It infects a human it touches and overwhelms them with fear, often causing them to lose their grip on reality and their sanity."

"To be fair, I don't know how it would affect you, seeing as you are a half ghost, but I would rather not find out." Maddie said. "I don't like the fact that you've already encountered one either. Is that what's in your Fenton Thermos?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, and I'm not sure I'm thrilled to find out that you were rooting through my stuff." Danny grumbled, heading to his suitcase, and shoving everything back inside of it, before he zipped it up. "Look, we're wasting time talking here, when who knows what Laura could be doing back in town. I'm willing to bet she's none to happy that Eileen's mother talked to a ghost hunter." He told her, glancing back at his mother. "We should probably get back as quickly as we can."

"That much you're probably right about." Maddie frowned, going silent as she watched her son phase back inside the crushed car, and coming back out with his carry on bag and her purse, tossing the latter of the items towards her. She didn't know if she could get used to the idea of her son having ghost powers- it just didn't seem natural to her, though she would never say that to his face. When they got back to Amity Park, she would need to run some tests for sure, to make sure that Danny's powers really weren't hurting him.

She needed to understand this, and right now, the only thing that Maddie was filled with was questions upon questions, some she knew that her son would hate her for if he ever realized that she was thinking about them. She didn't want Danny to know that the more logical part of her was at war with the motherly part of her- the logical part of her wanted to know exactly what it was that made a half ghost tick, and was thinking of thoughts and ideas that the motherly side of her was actively balking at. Blood samples yes, hair samples for DNA were just fine, but there was a part of her that was so fascinated by the idea of something as impossible as her son's existence that it wanted to go further than just that.

As much as she said she didn't want Danny to know, there was something in the wary way he looked at her that told Maddie that he already knew full well what that part of her was thinking. There was something in his body language that conveyed to her that her son didn't fully trust her, not at the moment. He was being too careful, she noticed, barely letting her out of his sight. It was almost eerie, another part of her couldn't help but think, the one that was still fixated on the notions of all ghosts being evil, a part of her that whispered questions into her ear about her son's humanity and what being half ghost meant for that.

She felt as if she disliked that part of her more than the cold, clinical part of her, that was dying to see what would happen were she to do any number of the horrid tests that she had at one point had in mind to perform whenever she had finally captured Phantom. Her son wasn't a monster, after all, he had been working so hard to save and protect people, even when Amity Park had turned against him, as it had several times.

Phantom really was a hero, when she thought about it, she wasn't sure how she hadn't let herself notice it before. It was probably that last part of her that kept her from doing so, that kept insisting it was all some kind of trick, that one day, like all other ghosts, Phantom _would _fall to evil, reminding her of the times when he had. She wanted to almost ask Danny about those times as well, but now seemed like the wrong time.

And he _was _right, at the moment, the Corpsewalker was the bigger threat to the both of them. She still didn't like the idea of her son getting in on the action, and had to remind herself that Phantom had been instrumental in the defeat of Pariah Dark- even if he _had _stolen the Fenton Exoskeleton in order to do so. Although, Maddie guessed it wasn't exactly _stolen _if Danny had been the one to take it in the first place.

"Mom?" Danny asked after a moment, slinging his carry on bag over his shoulder, and grabbing his suitcase, rolling it back up onto the street. "Um. Look, I know this must be a lot for you to take in all at once." He said, for once looking straight at her. "But you know that I love you, right? I mean, even with the things you and dad have said in the past. It wasn't like you knew, after all. I just... I wanted you to know that I don't hate you guys or anything."

Maddie couldn't help but blink, feeling as if a bit of weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Now that she thought about it, she had been worried about that exact thing, although she hadn't realized it, her mind a mess of thoughts already. "Thank you, Danny. That means a lot to me. And... I am sorry. I'm so very sorry about the things we said, Danny. Even if we didn't know, you must have been terrified. I do understand at least, why you chose to keep your secret a secret in the first place. I wouldn't have said anything in your shoes either." She told him, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I would imagine not." Danny gave her a small smile, before pausing, glancing back towards his mother. "Are you sure you're alright to walk though, mom? I mean, we did just jump out of a moving car and all. I could carry you."

Maddie couldn't help but snort at the idea of her son carrying her. "Oh _please_, Danny, I'd be surprised if you could even pick me up. But I'll be fine. At the most I dislocated my shoulder. I already took care of that, by the way, so you needn't worry."

"I'm a good deal stronger than I look." Danny couldn't help but give her a sheepish grin. "But if you say so. I'm glad you're alright, mom. I don't know what I would do if something happened to you, after all. One of the reasons I didn't want to leave you here by yourself. You're really competent at ghost hunting, but you know... you're my mom, and I can't help but worry about what would happen if I lost you." He told her, glancing back briefly at her as they began to head back towards the town. "I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"I know." Maddie nodded her head after a moment. "And thank you for that Danny. Thank you for trying to protect me as well." She said, catching up to him and resting a hand on his shoulder. "You're the best son that a mother could ask for."

Even as she told her that, the two other conflicting parts of her seemed to wonder about that statement. Maddie forced them back, her motherly side winning out, knowing the regardless of what her son was, or any other questions that she might have about him, any lingering doubts, that much was true.

She just really hoped he didn't notice the war that was raging inside of her head. She could never forgive herself if he did. The last thing her son needed was a mother that was questioning his very humanity.

Maddie assumed the cold feeling that prickled her skin was just a sensation of cold from her son as she gave him a tight squeeze, and didn't think much of it. She probably should have paused for a moment and listened to the logical part of her brain then, because if she did, the outcome of future events might have changed if she had noticed the chill's true nature.


End file.
